The first time, welcome to those who have been with us since friday. This journey began. Welcome to the philip roth. Unbowed and our weekend long celebration. The life and legacy of novelist and newark native philip roth on the occasion of would have what have been his 90th birthday today in fact would have been philip roths 90th birthday so happy birthday, roth. My name is carey and im a coproducer of the along with jon schreiber, president and ceo of njpac. Rosemary steinbaum, a trustee of the newark public library. Chelsea keyes njpac, director of strategic initiatives. James shapiro, professor of english at columbia university. And bernard schwartz, director of Unterberg Poetry Center at the 92nd street y. Over the course of these past three days, weve been telling a story. On friday, that story was about newark or, as they apparently say here. Newark, one syllable not to a majority minority city whose, cultural, political and economic and triumphs have in many reflected the Greater National situation over the decades, expressed roths work and voices characters as dynamic and distinct as the citys five wards. Yesterday day we told a story about roth himself, about roth discovering himself a story of outrage, identity, absurdity, friendship, comedy, and of course sexual appetite. Today, on the festivals final day will tell a bigger story, a story that is in many ways about america itself. And about an artist whose gaze in his maturity to turn outward, whose preoccupations had evolved in. Roths later novels, we saw Nathan Zuckerman transform gradually from suburb act to narrator and become a writer no longer merely obsessed with what might happen in bed, but with what couldnt. Whose characters no longer lived exuberance but face their mortality with panic, dread, regret, and too many unanswered questions. Characters no longer wild with freedom, but with concern for protecting it. The idea for this particular conversation american berserk history, democracy and the relentless unforeseen came out of a lunch john. Rosemary and i had with todays moderator, sean wilentz last winter in princeton, sean served, as something of a personal historian for roth suggesting what to read when philip had questions or ideas discussing those books with him, offering his thoughts on how roth then expressed those ideas and events in his later novels. What struck me most was a remark sean made about roths historical consciousness. And i left that lunch fixated on the question of what it actually meant to historically, as a writer. I think that question is really at the heart of this conversation, which will certainly nod to the American American pastoral and married communists and the human stain. And of course, the plot against america. But well also explore more broadly something about roths concern for, the fragility of our democracy with, freedom writ large and of history itself as it forms and unfold in the moments we all actually and have it, whether we see it or not. And by the late books, it becomes more more clear that this american story was, one roth had been telling all along, whether lindbergh, nixon or trump, it was something perhaps born being a , an american , that roth had been worrying over from his earliest work or so a case can be made. I think what sean have meant and youll correct me by thinking historical has to do with with fluency so that what seems to a reader to be in works like pastoral plot is perhaps something more like pattern recognition remarkable not only for demonstrating how serious roth was about and capturing the american experience. But, of course, for the breathtaking roth somehow then expressed that sweep of historical forces through character. As a novelist joining us this morning to consider what it means to think historically why it matters for distinguished writers and thinkers. Daryl is the author of two novels, high cotton and black deutschland. Three collections of essays and memoir come back in september. Literary education on west seventh street, manhattan, which was published this past fall. Philip gourevitch, a longtime staff writer at the new yorker and former editor the paris review, is the author standard operating procedure. The ballad of abu ghraib a cold case and the award winning. We wish to you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families. Stories from rwanda Francine Prose is the author of more than 20 works of fiction, including the vixen and cleopatra. Her most recent works of nonfiction include the highly acclaimed and frank the book the life, the afterlife and the New York Times bestseller. Reading like a writer. Francine is distinguished visiting writer at bard and our moderator sean wilentz is the George Henry Davis 1886 professor of american history, princeton. His most recent study, property in man slavery, antislavery at the founding was recipient of the annual Thomas Cooley prize cooley book prize paris siegel, who is listed in your program as a participant today, was unable to join us so we apologize for that. Before we begin before we begin, a quick reminder. You can purchase copies of titles by all panelists and by philip roth outside the lobby where theyre being sold by newarks source of knowledge bookstore as. Our special festival posters designed by nel. During the conversation our ushers very important will be walking with notecards for you to submit any questions you might have. Well a q a at the end of this event and well our best to get to as many questions as we can. The ushers will be walking through at a quarter of 11 and at 11 00. Please have your ready and do. Please note. We still have tickets available. A few tickets, very few for todays nine. Actor nine chapter adaptation of the plot against america. So do be sure to visit the box office and now please join in welcoming our panelists. Thank you. Thank you. Carrie, its wonderful to be here with my friends, colleagues and there was that lunch in princeton. Actually, it was it was a lot of fun. And as i remember it, we were talking about phillips place and World Literature actually. And i came back to hawthorne and i kept thinking about hawthorne or i think about his relationship with, hawthorne and melville and not just, you know, call me smitty is a wonderful first line for any novel. But but but in a new order sense of historical, which both of them had and, of course he did, too, in a somewhat different way. And thats we just sort of took it there. Right. And were ending up here. So what is the way to start off . What i thought we do im going to read this off of my phone, but heres the book anyway, because i have to give a plug. Right . We have to give the plug. Its run the plot against america. Okay. And youll remember in the book, those of you whove read it, those are you havent probably heard about it anyway, the book is predicated the idea that Charles Lindbergh actually won the president ial election in 1940, thereby bringing more than a hint of fascism to American Life and how his family in newark. In newark, whenever they would have dealt with that. Okay. But that novel theres a line theres a passage which im going to read which says this sets as many questions because theres a lot of ways to think historical consciousness, actually, its not just one thing, but it it up in all its richness or much of its which is im going to read it now and then im going to turn to the panel and ask them to comment. It goes like this and is lindberghs election couldnt have made clear it to me the unfold leading of the unforeseen was everything to turned wrong way round the relentless unforeseen was what we schoolchildren studied as history harmless history where everything unexpected in its own time is chronicled on the page as inevitable the terror of the unfor. Seen is what the sides of history turning a disaster into an epic. Darryl. Do you have any thoughts you to share with us about that . I only if im forgiven for rambling rambling wouldnt sent that around. I was thinking is the charterhouse of parma an historical novel or is it a novel . But theres setting. Is it about, um, its only 20 years after the napoleon campaigns. It describes so when is when does something become historical is that a matter of reflection . Is there some narrative in the novel that. On the other hand. Whereas far from modernism as modernism was from romanticize ism so is the great gatsby history, we certainly read the fiction and learn something about the jazz age. We feel so the historical presence fiction. One of tome witness point of view or attitude. Gertrude stein said what good are roots if you cant them with you and . One thing about reading philip roth, is everything starts in newark. It doesnt start anywhere else. It starts in newark. The families starts in newark. The Second Chances for the immigrants start in newark. There is very little of this kind of past before pogroms or with pogroms, its always sort of newark and is thinking about. And the philip roth book, i still love the most, forgive me, is good bye columbus. And that day hes standing there. Yes. Is everything there that he is as a writer . All there, you know, sort of. Its just wonderful and i hes standing there wondering whos going to come after us, whos going to come after the people who came us, the , whos going to come after . And he hadnt seen the portuguese and the brazilians yet, but all of his right. Well, the writing ive read of philip roth has this historical sense because he comes from a people who need a historical sense. So well to pick up on what daryl was saying about what is a historical novel. I was thinking that like 95 of novels are historical novels and that they take place in history. I mean, mrs. Dalloway, is a historical novel because was injured in world war one in search of lost as a historical novel because dreyfus affair which is a historical event runs all the way through it but but difference is that with philips novels i think theyre about history in the sense that theyre about the moment history hits his characters like a truck so not theyre about history in the sense that history is is the thing makes the novel happen in a way that it doesnt necessarily other novels theres another line in american pastoral. I think that im probably going to misquote where says something like, im in retrospect, history happens slowly, but when its it happens very quickly. And thats certainly true in the plot against america. I mean. Lamb right from the beginning. So so that putting history not only as at the center, but as the drama forest that shapes the novel i think is what makes philip roths novels different from from many other from from all the other. I mean, beckett is not his whole story will novelists but but but most others and then philip roths are quite different i think. Okay. Yeah. I dont think of him as a historical novelist, but a novelist in history and conscious of it and that what hes interested in is this intersection between, as you say, the private and, the public life, you know, and i remember sort of talking to him about once and he was saying how say with with plot against america and with other things. He said, you know, the problem is when people start to tell me, like well, youre youve got this take on this or youre sort of telling us about some sort of a historical pattern or a political pattern, he said, i dont views i am not i as soon as somebody says that i dont recognize my work anymore, i am interested, as the novelist should be in specific data and am interested in that particular and in particular izing everything which seems to reduce it down from the general. But its to me the general obliterates all thats particular and he said you know with newark yeah it all comes from there. I didnt, he didnt really write about it for that period in the seventies, in the eighties and so forth. After patrimony he starts to come back and and hes he he said, you know when youre in your earlier decades up until at least 50 you think if you think youre absorbed yourself as a person and becoming person and what you are and later you suddenly how much thats shaped by where you were and he said travel made a difference with that going to london going to israel going to Eastern Europe and seeing how much people were both particular psychological human and individual selves and that interacted with some kind of a collectivized experience of that place. Time in historical circumstance and and if think about it that way it helped me understand what he was up to. Right. Its exactly what youre saying about how history slams into people. Its about those moments when the unforeseen. In other words, when when what will later be looked at as history helps reshape a life. And in his own case, he said, you know with plot. He said the biggest difficulty, the reason he abandoned it a few times along the way is because he he never really wanted write about a childs perspective. And in some ways this passage you read is the moment when it kind of explodes out of that because he takes the childs perspective to something larger. Its where the unforeseen comes in. But he said he was a happy child and his view and an exuberant sort of happy to be a newark boy played baseball every day, etc. And then the war was there and that became for him the first time that he saw that it affected the whole community somehow affected and how the emotions of war coincided with the emotions was you know that you have like at the beginning you have fear then you have defiance that youre proud of your country. Then you have this all these things that were out there that you think of as your own and then you start to see later in life as you look, the larger shapes that that kind of became the ambition of that later period. I want to pick up on, i also a hes asking who pays for this history . You know, i think thats a big part of late novels. What these characters rather anxious about what life amounts to and zuckerman being rather and thinking well it doesnt amount to anything i think that the question was also who pays and in the. The point the plot against america you know its that poor kid who gets shipped down to kentucky whos as heartbreaking as frank conroy, his best friend, and that kind of thing, who pays i married a communist who pays well, ira, american. Who pays the people who were bombed, i think, uh uh. And of down that way, um hmm. Oh i lost by that point to come back. Sorry. Well, thats why theyre novels. I mean not a history that because yeah, go ahead. You know in fact its something i read in the paper irritated me because i was going to say and anyway were so on systemic causes and structural causes, etc. And this one review was saying these concentrations take away our attention from personal agency and this is what novel does that it returns a sense of history as human drama a sort of man made that these forces are not necessarily faceless that they do. Yeah yeah well thats what we were i mean. We were talking earlier before the panel about what we remember and what we dont remember about books and and just the plot against america. I the pages of information about. Lindbergh in the pages of information about, the germanamerican bond go into your head and out of your head because partly we already know it or whatever. But what we remember are the scenes of philip getting locked in the bathroom and selden mother talking him down or poor calling from kentucky after mother has been killed and so forth and so its its what happens to the human beings that seems important to us and it sticks us. And the history is where it happens and why it happens but its not the excuse. Horrible word. Take away away meaning you didnt say you take out but you know but thats but but thats what i mean you could tell that was the heart of it for him that that those characters it is he he he was interested in that context to i mean he was interested in this i ran into him around 2016 at a gathering and it was, you know, right before after trump had been elected before the inauguration, though. And i said he he he sees me because what the hell is going on, right . Im a reporter so he sort of says it like that. Right. And i said, tell me you wrote the book on it. He said, i write anything about this which i which, i think, i mean, and i was like, yeah, but, but he didnt, he didnt write. He meant like, i wrote about that and what wrote about there was he had read a half sentence and arthur juniors memoir where it mentioned that there was no nothing wing of the Republican Party had wanted to nominate lindbergh and he thought, boy, they made a big mistake he would won hands down he said you know everybody says, oh, but he made that bad speech in des moines about the. He said that would have helped him he would he would have picked up all votes that lieberman lost for gore. He said, you know, this is how he thought like it was all alive for him. He hated lieberman with a passion. He did. Yeah. He said lieberman managed to lose even more votes by being jewish because of me and my friend russ miller. We wouldnt for him in connecticut he but he was he was very clear about like that sense that like heres unforeseen with trump even though of course he had a road map to it in some. Yeah isnt it eerie i mean rereading i think of us reread the book in preparation rereading it now and i kept looking back and saying wait, this was written in 2004 because for however math is not my strong point. 12, 12 years and the human stone. I think an even more in that sense much more descriptive our own time you know he did care about the context basically had me fact check all that stuff and not me actually i got it my most talent undergraduate to do it. Samantha williamson was her name. I want to give credit where credit is due since were on tv. But he cared immensely that because he didnt think that the character of it could really operate well without. His knowing that stuff without him, you know, he couldnt have himself reacting history unless he had the history. And it was much back there for him. I mean, i think i remember i got an email from him just after trump got elected saying he will suspend the constitution. Now, he wasnt saying that out of anything other than what had just happened, you know, he wasnt he wasnt he had some historical you know, he he wasnt human. Steyn, however, does i mean, i think human stain, the one that that he was capturing not just in the i mean theres so in that novel, but not just in the story that we all talk about, but in all of the characters because they still are alive. Delphine, ru see . Delphine ru i see 100 dolphin rooms every i go now, that is extraordinary because thats something you couldnt have called, but that he called out and he managed to put their it wasnt history so much but he was in a historical moment and he understood it just one that kept on going. I right well he writes about class and never tells you that he is. Yes. So its one of the things that makes his social landscape very real. When i first was aw