The Human Stain Summary
Philip Roth

Biography EssayIn 1973, Philip Roth wrote a satirical novel about baseball which he entitled The Great American Novel. The title refers to the parodies of a number of classic American novels in the ... Read more

In 1974, Philip Roth wrote a satirical novel about baseball which he entitled The Great American Novel. The title refers to the parodies of a number of classic American novels in the book, but it al... Read more

[This entry was updated by S. Lillian Kremer (Kansas State University) from her entry in DLB 173: American Novelists Since World War II, Fifth Series, pp. 202-234.]A major writer of twentieth-century ... Read more

In the following essay, Romano finds connections between The Human Stain and Francine Prose's Blue Angel. “A university,” poet John Ciardi acidly observed, “is what a co... Read more

In the following review, Gardam discusses the main thematic elements within The Human Stain. ‘What ish my nation?’ asks the drunken, disillusioned Macmorris in Henry V after Agincourt... Read more

In the following excerpt, Krupnik draws a connection between the events portrayed in The Human Stain and those occuring in the American political scene during the late 1990s. Philip Roth's p... Read more

In the following review, Bachman views The Human Stain as a compelling reflection of culture, politics, and society in America in the late 1990s. In his quest for the Nobel Prize in Literature, Phi... Read more

In the following review, Jacobs provides a laudatory assessment of The Human Stain. Philip Roth has long been one of the great chroniclers of contemporary American life. There have been a few less-... Read more

In the following essay, Boxwell praises The Human Stain, believing the novel aptly explores the historical, political, social, and cultural forces working in American society in the late 1990s. The... Read more

In the following mixed review of The Human Stain, Wood traces Roth's literary development, asserting he is “an extraordinarily intelligent novelist” whose intellect may actually c... Read more

In the following review of The Human Stain, Adams lauds Roth's exploration of American popular culture in each of his works, maintaining that there is a “supreme confidence” displ... Read more

In the following review, Bernstein contends that Roth provides richly detailed character portraits in The Human Stain and feels this novel effectively explores crucial points of American postwar histo... Read more