A long-awaited biography of legendary novelist Philip Roth is coming next year, the Associated Press reports.
Philip Roth: The Biography, by Blake Bailey, will hit bookstore shelves next spring. The book, which has been in the works for years and will be published by W.W. Norton and Company, spans 880 pages.
“Appointed by Philip Roth and granted independence and complete access, Blake Bailey spent years poring over Roth’s personal archive, interviewing his friends, lovers, and colleagues, and engaging Roth himself in breathtakingly candid conversations,” Norton said on a webpage for the biography. “The result is an indelible portrait of an American master and of the postwar literary scene.”
Roth, who died in 2018, was one of the country’s most acclaimed novelists. His career took off in 1959 with the short fiction collection Goodbye, Columbus, and he caused a stir in 1969 with the controversial Portnoy’s Complaint. He won the National Book Award twice, for Goodbye, Columbus and Sabbath’s Theater, and the Pulitzer Prize once, for American Pastoral.
Bailey’s previous biographies include Cheever: A Life, about John Cheever, and A Tragic Honesty, about Richard Yates.
Bailey shared an email from Roth, who died in 2018, with the AP. “My whole writing life now revolves around you,” Roth wrote. “Anything to make Blake happy. This is madness.”
Philip Roth: The Biography is set for publication on April 6, 2021.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
