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The life of Philip Roth was a story. So was the writing of his biography.
Blake Bailey’s “Philip Roth,” a volume Roth had imagined in some form for more than 20 years, comes out April 6. Ever willing to provoke or amplify an argument, the author of “American Pastoral,” “Sabbath’s Theater” and other novels had been thinking of a biography ever since his former wife, actress Claire Bloom, depicted him as unfaithful, cruel and irrational in her 1996 memoir “Leaving a Doll’s House.”
Roth was determined to have his side come out, but wanted someone else to tell it. He first recruited Ross Miller, an English professor and nephew of playwright Arthur Miller, but became so unhappy with what he believed was Miller’s narrow scope that the two had a falling out. So in 2012, Roth brought in Bailey, granting him full access to his papers, his friends and, the highest hurdle, the author himself.
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