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Goodbye, Columbus: And Five Short Stories

by Philip Roth

Goodbye, Columbus: And Five Short Stories Cover

Awards

Winner of the National Book Award.

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Roth's award-winning first book — about Neil Klugman, Brenda Patimkin, and their relationship which tests the boundaries of suspicion, social class, and love — instantly established its author's reputation as a writer of explosive wit, merciless insight, and a fierce compassion for even the most self-deluding of characters.

Review:

"A masterpiece." —Newsweek

"Unlike those of us who come howling into the world, blind and bare, Mr. Roth appears with nails, hair, teeth, speaking coherently. He is skilled, witty, energetic and performs like a virtuoso." —Saul Bellow

"Superior, startling, incandescently alive." —The New Yorker

Synopsis:

Roth's award-winning first book instantly established its author's reputation as a writer of explosive wit, merciless insight, and a fierce compassion for even the most self-deluding of his characters.

Goodbye, Columbus is the story of Neil Klugman and pretty, spirited Brenda Patimkin, he of poor Newark, she of suburban Short Hills, who meet one summer break and dive into an affair that is as much about social class and suspicion as it is about love. The novella is accompanied by five short stories that range in tone from the iconoclastic to the astonishingly tender and that illuminate the subterranean conflicts between parents and children and friends and neighbors in the American Jewish diaspora.

Synopsis:

Roth's award-winning first book instantly established its author's reputation as a writer of explosive wit, merciless insight, and a fierce compassion for even the most self-deluding of his characters.

Goodbye, Columbus is the story of Neil Klugman and pretty, spirited Brenda Patimkin, he of poor Newark, she of suburban Short Hills, who meet one summer break and dive into an affair that is as much about social class and suspicion as it is about love. The novella is accompanied by five short stories that range in tone from the iconoclastic to the astonishingly tender and that illuminate the subterranean conflicts between parents and children and friends and neighbors in the American Jewish diaspora.

About the Author

In the 1990s Philip Roth won America's four major literary awards in succession: the National Book Critics Circle Award for Patrimony (1991), the PEN/Faulkner Award for Operation Shylock (1993), the National Book Award for Sabbath's Theater (1995), and the Pulitzer Prize in fiction for American Pastoral (1997). He won the Ambassador Book Award of the English-Speaking Union for I Married a Communist (1998); in the same year he received the National Medal of Arts at the White House. Previously he won the National Book Critics Circle Award for The Counterlife (1986) and the National Book Award for his first book, Goodbye, Columbus (1959). In 2000 he published The Human Stain, concluding a trilogy that depicts the ideological ethos of postwar America. For The Human Stain Roth received his second PEN/Faulkner Award as well as Britain's W. H. Smith Award for the Best Book of the Year. In 2001 he received the highest award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Gold Medal in fiction, given every six years "for the entire work of the recipient."

Table of Contents

Goodbye, Columbus — The Conversion of the Jews — Defender of the faith — Epstein — You can't tell a man by the song he sings — Eli, the fanatic.

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
nico4sur, March 12, 2008 (view all comments by nico4sur)
Goodbye, Columbus is a summer love story between two young adults. But, behind the apparency of what would be a cliche story you will find a complex social class encounter.
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(5 of 7 readers found this comment helpful)

Product Details

ISBN:
9780679748267
Subtitle:
And Five Short Stories
Author:
Roth, Philip
Publisher:
Vintage Books USA
Location:
New York :
Subject:
General
Subject:
Literary
Subject:
Fiction
Subject:
United states
Subject:
Short Stories (Anthologies)
Subject:
Jews
Subject:
Jews -- United States -- Fiction.
Subject:
Jewish fiction.
Subject:
United States Social life and customs.
Edition Description:
Vintage Intl
Series Volume:
7
Publication Date:
January 1994
Binding:
Paperback
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Yes
Pages:
320
Dimensions:
8.10x5.28x.69 in. .54 lbs.

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