potato enthusiast (also post-1945 literature enthusiast, maybe); grad student; baba yaga
re-reading parts of The Counterlife (the first Roth book i ever read!) and i can see why it gets lauded as his most formally accomplished book, but i still think that honor should go to The Ghost Writer
Frank Guan is a writer
listening to christmas carols, 2017: ah this is nice. peace on earth, goodwill to all. the west at its best listening to christmas carols after reading philip roth's THE COUNTERLIFE in 2018: the genocidal intent in these triumphal harmonies is clear. never shall i marry a shiksa
"Roth is a comic genius.... In this book (wonderfully sharp, worryingly intense) he is an electrifier." --Martin Amis, The Atlantic
"No other writer combines such a surface of colloquial relaxation and even dishevelment with such a dense load of mediating intelligence.... Roth has never written more scrupulously or, in spots, more lovingly." --John Updike, The New Yorker