After his American Trilogy—what some called his “Letter to Stockholm” series—a consensus formed that Roth stood alone among contemporary novelists. Stockholm, however, remained unmoved. “The child in me is delighted,” Bellow had said about awards in general and the Nobel in particular; “the adult in me is skeptical.” Roth appropriated the remark for his own boilerplate, and meanwhile he couldn’t help thinking about the most conspicuous difference in his and Bellow’s respective careers—especially after Bellow’s widow gave Roth the top hat her husband had worn in Stockholm, which Roth displayed
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