Critics generally agree that since Portnoy's Complaint (1969), Roth's novels have been a series of autobiographical confessions. The full title, Operation Shylock: A Confession has added strength that contention and caused them to declare that to understand fully Roth's most recent novel, one must re-read the ordeal of Alexander Portnoy, the Nathan Zuckerman trilogy, The Facts (1988), and Patrimony (1991). "Everything that he has written since then [Portnoy]," states Hilary Spurling, "could be seen as in some sense a training program, part of the preparation for this rich, complex, and strenuously ambitious book [Shylock]."