Roth esurrects the characters of his trilogy, Zuckerman Bound (1985), to create his best novel since Portnoy's Complaint (1969) and his technically most complex. The novel contains a long section set in Israel in which Roth presents opposing views — right, left, and center — on Israel's mission, its occupation of the West Bank, and the infighting among Israelis. In a later chapter, he brings up the vexed question of anti-Semitism, particularly in England. Nathan Zuckerman woos and weds an English woman and, because of a child from her previous marriage, they move to London, where he encounters various incidents of more or less blatant bigotry. To his wife's surprise and his own, he becomes not only more fully conscious of his own Jewishness, but also very defensive about it — to the point where it threatens to destroy his marriage.