"The Plot Against America" by Philip Roth

My experience reading Roth has been mixed. I remember enjoying "The Ghost Writer", I think, but was never able to get through "The Great American Novel". However, in my reading about 9/11 literature, this novel was mentioned several times so I wanted to find out for myself what it was all about. It has nothing to do with 9/11, but has some connection with 9/11 literature through the fact that it is a reimagining of history. Roth rewrites a portion of pre-WWII American history. In his version, Charles Lindbergh gets elected president. His administration is friendly with the Hitler regime and things start going downhill for American Jews. The novel is narrated by none other than a young nine-year-old boy named "Philip Roth". It tells the story of his family's experience during this turbulent time as seem from his point of view. He takes us through all the drama including family disputes, persecution experienced, unexpected alliances and his gradual loss of innocence. At the end of the book, Roth includes a postscript with real historical information about the figures and chronology of the period. My experience of reading this work was a bit choppy due to lots of other stuff going on this spring, but I did enjoy it. I was especially impressed by Roth's skillfull rendering of a fight scene. It's a bit long, but I think I'll copy some of it anyway:

"I didn't have the capacity in 1942 to begin to decipher all the awful implications, but just the sight of my father's and Alvin's blood was stunning enough. Blood spattered the length and breadth of our imitation Oriental rug, blood dripping from the splintered remains of our coffee table, blood smeared like a sign across my father's forehead, blood spurting from my cousin's nose - and the two of them not so much fistfighting, not so much wrestling as caroming, with a terrible bony thwack colliding, rearing back and charging in like men with antlers branching from their brows, fantastical, cross-species creatures sprung from mythology into our living room and pulping each other's flesh with their massive, snaggletoothed horns. Inside a house you usually scale down your movements, you scale down your speed, but here the scale of things was reversed and terrifying to behold."