{"product_id":"9780804783675","title":"In History's Grip: Philip Roth's Newark Trilogy","description":"\u003ci\u003eIn History's Grip\u003c\/i\u003e concentrates on the literature of Philip Roth, one of America's greatest writers, and in particular on \u003ci\u003eAmerican Pastoral\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eI Married a Communist\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Human Stain\u003c\/i\u003e. Each of these novels from the 1990s uses Newark, New Jersey, to explore American history and character. Each features a protagonist who grows up in and then leaves Newark, after which he is undone by a historically generated crisis. The city's twentieth-century decline from immigrant metropolis to postindustrial disaster completes the motif of history and its terrifying power over individual destiny. \u003ci\u003eIn History's Grip\u003c\/i\u003e is the first critical study to foreground the city of Newark as the source of Roth's inspiration, and to scrutinize a subject Roth was accused of avoiding as a younger writer—history. In so doing, the book brings together the two halves of Roth's decades-long career: the first featuring characters who live outside of history's grip; the second, characters entrapped in historical patterns beyond their ken and control.","brand":"Stanford University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47118423097584,"sku":"9780804783675","price":50.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780804783675_p0.jpg?v=1763741586","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780804783675","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}