The problem was, like many novelists before him, Roth – all too aware of the divergent opinions – wanted to control his legacy. So he first recruited as his biographer a friend he thought pliable, Ross Miller, nephew of the playwright Arthur, but the arrangement twice came to an end after Roth criticised his research methods.
Roth even wrote a full-length book entitled
Notes for My Biographer, mostly devoted to rebutting the allegations made by Roth’s former wife Claire Bloom in her incendiary memoir
Leaving A Doll’s House. He considered publishing the book then decided to keep it as an aid for his biographer. Roth offered the vacant role to several other friends, including the respected biographers Hermione Lee and Judith Thurman, neither of whom were available. In 2012, Bailey entered the picture. He didn’t know Roth, but he’d written three highly praised literary biographies, including works on Richard Yates and John Cheever.
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Blake Bailey, author of a much-hyped biography of Philip Roth, has been accused by four more women of sexual harassment and abuse, while he was teaching at a university in Virginia.