Yet through more than half of the reviews of everything written after
Goodbye, Columbus, there remains the complaint— the complaint in fact of many of Roth's heroes who have more than enough to keep them contented and yet are always asking for more.
Philip Roth was born into a lower-middleclass Jewish family in Newark, New Jersey, on 19 March 1933 to Beth Finkel and Herman Roth, an insurance salesman. Although he was born during the heart of the Depression, Roth grew up in the slightly more prosperous times of World War II. His memories of Newark and the social stratification in the nearby suburbs are evident particularly in Goodbye, Columbus and in Portnoy's Complaint. After two years at the Newark branch of Rutgers University, Roth earned an A.B. at Bucknell University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and edited the school's literary magazine. After receiving an M.A. in English from the University of Chicago, Roth joined the army in 1955 but was discharged after being injured in basic training. He returned to the University of Chicago in 1956, pursuing a Ph.D.
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