By Philip Roth. It probably helps that the protagonist, Nathan Zuckerman, is about my current age. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. Details . I Married a Communist is the story of the rise and fall of Ira Ringold, a big American roughneck who begins life as a teenage ditch-digger in 1930s Newark, becomes a big-time 1940s radio star, and is destroyed, as both a performer and a man, in the McCarthy witchhunt of the 1950s. Suddenly, Murray and Zuckerman's relationship becomes real; suddenly, the story takes on a life outside of itself, a significance that's then subverted into beautifully rendered insignificance; suddenly, Roth's expanded the double-narrative into a triple-narrative, taking advantage of the fact that this novel is one character telling a story about another. His insights into human nature teach me about human beings in a way I would not conceive. The prose is brave, with scattered funny episodes, ("She married me to carry her daughter's harp! I wonder if the scandal around the real-life parallels with Roth's marriage distracted people from how good the book is on occasion. I Married a Communist is the story of the rise and fall of Ira Ringold, a big American roughneck who begins life as a teenage ditchdigger in 1930s Newark, becomes a big-time 1940s radio star, and is destroyed, both as a performer and a man, in the McCarthy witch hunt of the 1950s. The book is firmly rooted in history, and even though it is not essential to *know* the time period, a bit of background knowledge on the McCarthy era especially goes a long way in enriching an already intense and turbulent story. Powerful account of the Red Scare, told through the rise and fall of a tough blue collar radio star from New Jersey. An idealistic Communist, a self-educated ditchdigger turned popular performer, a six-foot six-inch Abe Lincoln look-alike, he marries the nation's reigning radio actress and beloved silent-film star, the exquisite Eve Frame (born Chava Fromkin). by Vintage. I Married a Communist by Philip Roth About the Book Ira Ringold grew up a Newark roughneck, blighted by a violent history from which he is always in flight. I MARRIED A COMMUNIST. It is also a story of two brothers (I have three), where Murray advises and consults the younger Ira through his tribulations, ascent to fame and, inevitably, catastrophe. Even should you choose to write in the simplest way, a la Hemingway, the task remains to impart the nuance, to elucidate the complication, to imply the contradiction. Complex and conflicted characters torn between the promises of various idealisms and the harder realities of their hypocritical desires: bourgeois comfort, power, sex and revenge. ), I Married a Communist (Complete Nathan Zuckerman #7/The American Trilogy, #2). He gained early literary fame with the 1959 collection, “Look, everything the Communists say about capitalism is true, and everything the capitalists say about Communism is true. Rewarding? Roth's old alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman, narrates the story of Ira Ringold, aka Iron Rinn, a supremely idealistic political radical and celebrated radio star of the 1950s who is blacklisted and brought to ruin when his wife, Eva Frame (a self-hating Jewish actress born Chava Fromkin), writes an expose called I Married A Communist. Further suggestions might be found on the article's talk page. I can’t say for sure; I’m speculating, but maybe this was Roth’s way of giving his novel greater period resonance. The book is firmly rooted in history, and even though it is not essential to *know* the time period, a bit of background knowled. I Married a Communist - Ebook written by Philip Roth. 'I Married a Communist' by Philip Roth Houghton Mifflin. The Woman on Pier 13 is a 1949 American film noir drama directed by Robert Stevenson and starring Laraine Day, Robert Ryan, and John Agar. The story is plotted out in a non-linear fashion, which really forces the reader to stay focused, especially when it comes to the multiple layers of characterization of different characters. Last Reviewed on June 19, 2019, by eNotes Editorial. The result? The story is narrated by Nathan Zuckerman, and is one of a trio of Zuckerman novels Roth wrote in the 1990s depicting the postwar history of Newark, New Jersey and its residents. Roth', How do you process a big, bombastic, messy book like this? Iron Rinn, born Ira Ringold, is a Newark roughneck, a radio actor, an idealistic Communist, and an educated ditchdigger turned popular performer. I Married a Communist or Woman on Pier 13 (1949) was one of the most distinctive of the early anti-communist films. (Note that I am reading them in order, and I have not yet read T, No. Top 200 of all time 150 Essential Comedies. See guidelines for writing about novels. With this, I've now completed Philip Roth's The American Trilogy. A high 3, could have been a 4 if it had been culled just a touch - there's a tendency toward repetitiveness here that can get frustrating. It's a fantastic read. The setting is Newark, Roth’s home turf, where he re-creates a place and time through his art that is more meaningful (to me) than any history book. The difference is, our system works because it's based on the truth about people's selfishness, and theirs doesn't because it's based on a fairy tale about people's brotherhood. I think this book is overlooked to some extent, it has, I think, the most emotional and earnest Zuckerman yet, and when the engine of the plot finally kicks in with about 50 pages to go it gets very good. Through Murray, Nathan meets, and is taken under the wing of, his younger brother Ira who started off as a ditch-digger in the 1930s and progressed to being a radio star in the 1940s and married to a Hollywood starlet, Eve Frame. She later attempts to make amends for having done this. See 2 questions about I Married a Communist…, Gitoutahe'! The setting is Newark, Roth’s home turf, where he re-creates a place and time through his art that is more meaningful (to me) than any history book. You have to take your hat off to life for the techniques at its disposal to strip a man of his significance and empty him totally of his pride. 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