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The Facts : A Novelist's Autobiography

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In this short, fascinating book Roth narrates the story of his life up to the publication of "Portnoy's Complaint." Then, in a long epilogue, Nathan Zuckerman (Roth's fictional alter-ego) critiques Roth's account, pointing out omissions and biases and attacking the "public relations tone" of the manuscript. If you have ever felt the sting of your outraged conscience, or laughed at how you trip over your own feet intellectually, Roth is the author for you.

Leave it to Phillip Roth to take a traditional autobiography and turn it on its ear. The book begins with a brief letter from Roth to his fictional character Zuckerman, explaining that he (Roth) has written a brief autobiography and wanted to get Zuckerman's input. Then comes the autobiography, a concise version of Roth's history focusing primarily upon his childhood, his college years, and his marriage to a woman who he later describes as his "nemesis." Finally the book ends with Zuckerman's comments on Roth's text. Just the thought of it is enough to make you laugh, but there is value in this approach. Roth clearly feels uneasy discussing himself, and so the fictional character allows him to break down his own personality without appearing overly self-indulgent. This final Zuckerman section is very insightful and alleviated my doubts that perhaps Phillip Roth does not understand himself as well as he would like to think.

'The Facts' is a quick read and goes a long way in illustrating how a nice Jewish boy from a good family in the suburbs of New Jersey could find enough angst in his life to eventually line his desk with a Pulitzer Prize, two PEN/Faulkner Awards, and a National Book Award. I would recommend it to anyone who has enjoyed anything by this master of the literary realm. (If you haven't yet read any of his novels, try Portnoy's Complaint, American Pastoral, or Goodbye Columbus... but you really can't go wrong, everything he's written is terrific.)

Philip Roth is undoubtably one of the 20th centuries best authors. He is also a fairly interesting figure and much of his best work is highly autobiographical...

as such, it is inevitable that people are interested in the "truth" of his life and what really happened. Roth obliges here, mostly, giving us an account of his life (only up until the publication of Portnoy's Complaint though) that seems quite true, but written in a way that feels novelistic and as if Roth was writing in the voice of another character. Then he bookends the autobiography with his fictional counter part, Zuckerman, commenting on the text and pondering the nature of truth, autobiography, etc.

This is a good book, but at then end of the day its not interesting to anyone who hasn't read the Zuckerman books, Portnoy's Complaint and his other autobiographical books. Its nice to get an account of what he drew on exactly, but only if you've read those books.

THE FACTS: A Novelist's Autobiography is primarily the autobiography of Philip Roth, which is written as a letter from Roth to Nathan Zuckerman, a character or narrator of many of Roth's novels. This novelist's autobiography, published in 1988, presents Roth's experiences up to the publication of PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT, which published in 1969 when Roth was 36 years old. For Roth, this novel was a breakthrough, since it was a "...high-spirited moment when the manic side of my imagination took off and I became my own writer..."

In the start of this letter, Roth explains to Zuckerman why he has decided to write an autobiography. In brief, Roth suffered from "fiction fatigue." In order to restart his engine, he decided to write an autobiography, since... "For me, as for most novelists, every genuine imaginative event begins down there, with the facts, with the specific, and not the philosophical, the ideological, the abstract." In this way, he intends to "...get back to the original well, not for material but for the launch, the relaunch--out of fuel, back to tank up on the magic blood."

Most of THE FACTS (the prologue and five of its six chapters) reads as a very interesting writer's autobiography, with Roth exploring the dynamics of his childhood and family, his experiences in college, the development of his relationship with his difficult shiksa wife, their separation, the publication of the transformative PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT, and his wife's death in an automobile accident. While there are many threads in this narrative, one certainly shows Roth "freeing" himself, not from "...my Jewishness or from my family..." but from "...an apprentice's literary models, particularly from the awesome graduate-school authority of Henry James, whose PORTRAIT OF A LADY had been a virtual handbook during the early drafts of LETTING GO." The bulk of THE FACTS ends with Roth "... determined to be an absolutely independent, self-sufficient man..."

In response to this autobiography, the character Nathan Zuckerman writes a return letter (and final chapter in THE FACTS) to Roth, which criticizes the autobiography. At the time THE FACTS published, Roth's most recent novel was the impressive THE COUNTERLIFE, which placed Zuckerman in a tense marriage with the upper-crust and very English Maria. In this return letter, Zuckerman calls autobiography the "most manipulative" literary form, due, in part, to its self-censorship. Further, he says that he trusts Roth more as a novelist than an autobiographer, since "your separating the facts from the imagination empties them of their potential dramatic energy." Then, Zuckerman proceeds to cast doubt on all aspects of Roth's autobiography, especially his portrayal of his mother, his wife, and May, his current girlfriend. Roth, in other words, uses the character Zuckerman to explore the shortcoming of this particular autobiography and this literary form.

In the prologue, Roth says he wrote THE FACTS to restart his fictional engine. This, he achieves at the very end of this book, when Maria reads Roth's letter to Zuckerman and then begins to express criticism of her husband, and then Roth, for deliberately creating tension and struggle in their fictional marriage, since this feeds both her husband's and Roth's work. At this point, the rejuvenated Roth has brought his readers back into his imaginary realm, where, as the cliché says, the characters have taken over the narrative. Roth has restarted his engine.

To its readers, THE FACTS bestows insights about the sources of Roth's early work, interesting criticism of autobiography, and a clever structure, which apparently helped Roth to write his way out of a slump. Recommended.

In the years since this book was published Roth has written at least three - major works, and a number of others. He has also gone through a life- threatening serious illness, a high publicity marriage, and a nasty two- sided confessional divorce. He has also gone through a lot of time by himself dedicatedly adding to the 'oeuvre'.
The 'Facts' then as it tells of Roth's early life, first marriage, problematic relation to the Jewish community, is only one part of the story.
'The Facts' is a very good book but for those like myself who have read very much Roth it is a small and partial work.
One would like to see a kind of 'summing up work' from him in which he discusses his overall conception of himself and development as a writer, his sense of where he truly belongs in the Literary tradition, his feeling about the whole 'meaning' of his life when obviously the 'personal side' does not seem very successful, his sense of his relation to American, Jewish and overall human history.

Autobiografía particular que inicia con una consulta del autor al personaje de varios de sus libros, Nathan Zuckermann, la opinión sobre la publicación del recuento de su vida y culmina, en el último capítulo, con la respuesta crítica del consultado en la que pone en duda lo allí narrado.

¿Será verdad lo leído? ¿O se debe interpretar como otra gran novela de un escritor creativo y ameno? ¿Habrá que dudar si lo escrito es una interpretación del autor de un recuerdo vago, o una certeza indiscutible de lo sucedido?

Sus recuentos son sensibles y graciosos; duros y dolorosos por momentos y permiten al lector, al menos en mi caso, a compenetrarse con él, entender sus pensamientos.

"Los recuerdos del pasado no son recuerdos de los hechos, sino recuerdos de tu imaginación de los hechos" Philip Roth en su carta a Zuckermann

A short 1988 autobiography written in answer to criticism that all his novels are purely autobiographical.

It is very short only 195 pages and is broken down into 5 chapters , childhood, education , first loves etc.

He writes about everybody but himself which is strange for an autobiography, of course he is present but all the details are about others.

We have a big chapter on his girlfriend Josie - the angriest person he ever met- she was also mad, pulling little stunts like feigning pregnancies ( buying urine off pregnant woman). So he did what you normally do with a creature like this - he married her!! and sentenced himself to a few more years of hell.

There is nothing regarding his writing, it all seems to have just fallen into place for him, there doesn't appear to be any rejection from publishers, the novels just got published and he carried on meeting new women and having holidays at the beach.

Of course there are events in his life that have cropped up in his novels, there was however no mention of him abusing the family liver as in Portnoys Complaint.

But really as an autobiography this is a flop, as I have mentioned he is very good writing about other people but he keeps himself fairly well hidden.

Roth is an acquired taste and if you are a fan this is worth while, but if not I would wait for the biography and hopefully get a bit more information about the lad.

Philip Roth's THE FACTS: A NOVELIST'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY offers a fine account of Roth's fiction and provides the autobiography of a writer who has changed the modern novel forever. Five episodes from Roth's life were the impetus for change and evolution: this surveys the progress and process of that change, and will reach any general lending library.

Roth disarms his critics by getting his alter ego, Zuckerman, to comment. He concentrates of key elements of his life, and is particularly candid in his comments on his first wife and his response to her death. I felt a little sorry for the Boston University senior who got a few brief comments. She failed to set his imagination alight I suppose.
I am not a fan but the clarity of the writing and the astute observations of himself and others make this a fine read for anyone who find human interaction intriguing.

This would be a ten, but it's only a nine because the facts aren't the facts. No, this isn't Roth. It's him pretending to be Zuckerman. But, when he asked Zuckerman if Roth should still write, happily he agrees.