Why I wish I d never met Philip Roth
Blake Bailey’s highly anticipated ‘definitive biography’ of Philip Roth was cancelled by WW Norton at the end of April when Bailey was accused of sexual assault. His agent dropped him; his publisher cancelled the book tour and cut all ties with the author. (The biography has since been picked up by Skyhorse.) I’ve never met Bailey, but I’ll never forget meeting his subject: Philip Roth.
It was a crisp October day in 2002 when we piled into the classroom at Columbia University’s Graduate School of the Arts. We were young. We were nervous. Soon we’d be talking to a writer who’d won the Pulitzer, the National Book Award (three times), the National Book Critics Circle Award (three times) and the Pen/Faulkner.