The Plot Against America
Encyclopedia
The Plot Against America is a novel by Philip Roth
published in 2004. It is an alternate history
in which Franklin Delano Roosevelt
is defeated in the presidential election of 1940
by Charles Lindbergh
.
ideas espoused by Lindbergh in real life as a spokesman for the America First Committee
and his own experiences growing up in Newark, New Jersey
. The novel depicts the Weequahic section of Newark which includes Weequahic High School
from which Roth graduated.
's autobiography, in which Schlesinger makes a comment that some of the more radical Republican senators of the day wanted Lindbergh to run against Roosevelt. The title appears to be taken from that of a communist
pamphlet published in support of the campaign against Burton K. Wheeler
's re-election to the U.S. Senate
in 1946.
The novel depicts an antisemitic United States in the 1940s. Roth had written in his autobiography, The Facts
, of the racial and antisemitic tensions that were a part of his childhood in Newark. Several times in that book he describes children in his neighborhood being set upon simply because they were Jewish.
of The Washington Post
, exploring the book's treatment of Lindbergh in some depth, calls the book "painfully moving" and a "genuinely American story."
The New York Times
review described the book as "a terrific political novel" as well as "sinister, vivid, dreamlike, preposterous and, at the same time, creepily plausible."
Blake Morrison
in The Guardian
also offered high praise: "The Plot Against America creates its reality magisterially, in long, fluid sentences that carry you beyond scepticism and with a quotidian attentiveness to sights and sounds, tastes and smells, surnames and nicknames and brandnames — an accumulation of des petits faits vrais — that dissolves any residual disbelief."
Writer Bill Kauffman
in The American Conservative
criticized its portrayal of increasing American antisemitism, in particular among Catholic
s, and for the nature of its fictional portrayals of real-life characters like Lindbergh, claiming it was "bigoted and libelous of the dead", as well as for its ending, featuring a resolution to the political situation that Kauffman considered a deus ex machina
.
Many supporters and critics of the book alike took it as something of a roman à clef
for or against the Bush administration
and its policies, but though Roth was opposed to the Bush administration, he has denied such allegorical interpretations of his novel.
In 2005, the novel won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History
and the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical Fiction
given by the Society of American Historians.
Philip Roth
Philip Milton Roth is an American novelist. He gained fame with the 1959 novella Goodbye, Columbus, an irreverent and humorous portrait of Jewish-American life that earned him a National Book Award...
published in 2004. It is an alternate history
Alternate history (fiction)
Alternate history or alternative history is a genre of fiction consisting of stories that are set in worlds in which history has diverged from the actual history of the world. It can be variously seen as a sub-genre of literary fiction, science fiction, and historical fiction; different alternate...
in which Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
is defeated in the presidential election of 1940
United States presidential election, 1940
The United States presidential election of 1940 was fought in the shadow of World War II as the United States was emerging from the Great Depression. Incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt , a Democrat, broke with tradition and ran for a third term, which became a major issue...
by Charles Lindbergh
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Augustus Lindbergh was an American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist.Lindbergh, a 25-year-old U.S...
.
Plot introduction
The novel follows the fortunes of the Roth family during the Lindbergh presidency, as antisemitism becomes more accepted in American life and Jewish-American families like the Roths are persecuted on various levels. The narrator and central character in the novel is the young Philip, and the care with which his confusion and terror are rendered makes the novel as much about the mysteries of growing up as about American politics. Roth based his novel on the isolationistIsolationism
Isolationism is the policy or doctrine of isolating one's country from the affairs of other nations by declining to enter into alliances, foreign economic commitments, international agreements, etc., seeking to devote the entire efforts of one's country to its own advancement and remain at peace by...
ideas espoused by Lindbergh in real life as a spokesman for the America First Committee
America First Committee
The America First Committee was the foremost non-interventionist pressure group against the American entry into World War II. Peaking at 800,000 members, it was likely the largest anti-war organization in American history. Started in 1940, it became defunct after the attack on Pearl Harbor in...
and his own experiences growing up in Newark, New Jersey
Newark, New Jersey
Newark is the largest city in the American state of New Jersey, and the seat of Essex County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Newark had a population of 277,140, maintaining its status as the largest municipality in New Jersey. It is the 68th largest city in the U.S...
. The novel depicts the Weequahic section of Newark which includes Weequahic High School
Weequahic High School
Weequahic High School is a public high school in Newark in Essex County, New Jersey. The school is operated by the Newark Public Schools and is located at 279 Chancellor Avenue....
from which Roth graduated.
Inspiration for the novel
Roth has stated that the idea for the novel came to him while reading Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
Arthur Meier Schlesinger, Jr. was an American historian and social critic whose work explored the American liberalism of political leaders including Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Robert F. Kennedy. A Pulitzer Prize winner, Schlesinger served as special assistant and "court historian"...
's autobiography, in which Schlesinger makes a comment that some of the more radical Republican senators of the day wanted Lindbergh to run against Roosevelt. The title appears to be taken from that of a communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
pamphlet published in support of the campaign against Burton K. Wheeler
Burton K. Wheeler
Burton Kendall Wheeler was an American politician of the Democratic Party and a United States Senator from 1923 until 1947.-Early life:...
's re-election to the U.S. Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
in 1946.
The novel depicts an antisemitic United States in the 1940s. Roth had written in his autobiography, The Facts
The Facts: A Novelist's Autobiography
The Facts: A Novelist's Autobiography is a book by Philip Roth that traces his life from his childhood in Newark, New Jersey to becoming a successful, widely respected novelist...
, of the racial and antisemitic tensions that were a part of his childhood in Newark. Several times in that book he describes children in his neighborhood being set upon simply because they were Jewish.
Literary significance and criticism
Roth's novel was generally well-received. Jonathan YardleyJonathan Yardley
Jonathan Yardley is a book critic at The Washington Post, and at one time of the Washington Star. In 1981 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.-Background and education:...
of The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
, exploring the book's treatment of Lindbergh in some depth, calls the book "painfully moving" and a "genuinely American story."
The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
review described the book as "a terrific political novel" as well as "sinister, vivid, dreamlike, preposterous and, at the same time, creepily plausible."
Blake Morrison
Blake Morrison
Philip Blake Morrison is a British poet and author who has published in a wide range of fiction and non-fiction genres. His greatest success came with the publication of his memoirs And When Did You Last See Your Father? which won the J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography. He has also written a...
in The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
also offered high praise: "The Plot Against America creates its reality magisterially, in long, fluid sentences that carry you beyond scepticism and with a quotidian attentiveness to sights and sounds, tastes and smells, surnames and nicknames and brandnames — an accumulation of des petits faits vrais — that dissolves any residual disbelief."
Writer Bill Kauffman
Bill Kauffman
Bill Kauffman is an American political writer generally aligned with the paleoconservative movement. He was born in Batavia, New York, and currently resides in Elba, New York, with his wife and daughter....
in The American Conservative
The American Conservative
The American Conservative is a monthly U.S. opinion magazine published by Ron Unz. Its first editor was Scott McConnell, his successors being Kara Hopkins and the present incumbent, Daniel McCarthy....
criticized its portrayal of increasing American antisemitism, in particular among Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
s, and for the nature of its fictional portrayals of real-life characters like Lindbergh, claiming it was "bigoted and libelous of the dead", as well as for its ending, featuring a resolution to the political situation that Kauffman considered a deus ex machina
Deus ex machina
A deus ex machina is a plot device whereby a seemingly inextricable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object.-Linguistic considerations:...
.
Many supporters and critics of the book alike took it as something of a roman à clef
Roman à clef
Roman à clef or roman à clé , French for "novel with a key", is a phrase used to describe a novel about real life, overlaid with a façade of fiction. The fictitious names in the novel represent real people, and the "key" is the relationship between the nonfiction and the fiction...
for or against the Bush administration
George W. Bush administration
The presidency of George W. Bush began on January 20, 2001, when he was inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States of America. The oldest son of former president George H. W. Bush, George W...
and its policies, but though Roth was opposed to the Bush administration, he has denied such allegorical interpretations of his novel.
In 2005, the novel won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History
Sidewise Award for Alternate History
The Sidewise Awards for Alternate History were established in 1995 to recognize the best alternate history stories and novels of the year.The awards take their name from the 1934 short story "Sidewise in Time" by Murray Leinster, in which a strange storm causes portions of Earth to swap places with...
and the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical Fiction
James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical Fiction
The James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical Fiction is a biannual award given by The Society of American Historians. The prize is given "to honor works of literary fiction that significantly advance the historical imagination" . The prize is named for nineteenth century American...
given by the Society of American Historians.
Historical figures
The Plot Against America depicts or mentions several historical figures:
|
Leo Frank Leo Max Frank was a Jewish-American factory superintendent whose hanging in 1915 by a lynch mob of prominent citizens in Marietta, Georgia drew attention to antisemitism in the United States.... Felix Frankfurter Felix Frankfurter was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.-Early life:Frankfurter was born into a Jewish family on November 15, 1882, in Vienna, Austria, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Europe. He was the third of six children of Leopold and Emma Frankfurter... Hank Greenberg Henry Benjamin "Hank" Greenberg , nicknamed "Hammerin' Hank" or "The Hebrew Hammer," was an American professional baseball player in the 1930s and 1940s. A first baseman primarily for the Detroit Tigers, Greenberg was one of the premier power hitters of his generation... William Randolph Hearst William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father... J. Edgar Hoover John Edgar Hoover was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972... Harold L. Ickes Harold LeClair Ickes was a United States administrator and politician. He served as United States Secretary of the Interior for 13 years, from 1933 to 1946, the longest tenure of anyone to hold the office, and the second longest serving Cabinet member in U.S. history next to James Wilson. Ickes... |
Fiorello H. LaGuardia Fiorello Henry LaGuardia was Mayor of New York for three terms from 1934 to 1945 as a liberal Republican. Previously he was elected to Congress in 1916 and 1918, and again from 1922 through 1930. Irascible, energetic and charismatic, he craved publicity and is acclaimed as one of the three or... Herbert H. Lehman Herbert Henry Lehman was a Democratic Party politician from New York. He was the 45th Governor of New York from 1933 to 1942, and represented New York in the United States Senate from 1950 to 1957.-Lehman Brothers:... John L. Lewis John Llewellyn Lewis was an American leader of organized labor who served as president of the United Mine Workers of America from 1920 to 1960... Charles Lindbergh Charles Augustus Lindbergh was an American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist.Lindbergh, a 25-year-old U.S... Anne Morrow Lindbergh Anne Morrow Lindbergh was an American author, aviator, and the spouse of fellow aviator Charles Lindbergh.She was an acclaimed author whose books and articles spanned the genres of poetry to non-fiction, touching upon topics as diverse as youth and age; love and marriage; peace, solitude and... Henry Morgenthau, Jr. Henry Morgenthau, Jr. was the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He played a major role in designing and financing the New Deal... |
Westbrook Pegler Francis James Westbrook Pegler was an American journalist and writer. He was a popular columnist in the 1930s and 1940s famed for his opposition to the New Deal and labor unions. Pegler criticized every president from Herbert Hoover to FDR to Harry Truman to John F. Kennedy... Joachim Prinz Joachim Prinz was a German rabbi who was outspoken against Nazism and became an American Jewish leader... Joachim von Ribbentrop Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop was Foreign Minister of Germany from 1938 until 1945. He was later hanged for war crimes after the Nuremberg Trials.-Early life:... Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war... Leverett Saltonstall Leverett A. Saltonstall was an American Republican politician who served as the 55th Governor of Massachusetts and as a United States Senator .-Biography:... Gerald L. K. Smith Gerald Lyman Kenneth Smith was an American clergyman and political organizer, who became a leader of the Share Our Wealth movement during the Great Depression and later the Christian Nationalist Crusade... |
Dorothy Thompson Dorothy Thompson was an American journalist and radio broadcaster, who in 1939 was recognized by Time magazine as the second most influential women in America next to Eleanor Roosevelt... Burton K. Wheeler Burton Kendall Wheeler was an American politician of the Democratic Party and a United States Senator from 1923 until 1947.-Early life:... David T. Wilentz David Theodore Wilentz was the Attorney General of New Jersey from 1934 to 1944. In 1935 he successfully prosecuted Bruno Hauptmann in the Lindbergh kidnapping trial... Wendell Willkie Wendell Lewis Willkie was a corporate lawyer in the United States and a dark horse who became the Republican Party nominee for the president in 1940. A member of the liberal wing of the GOP, he crusaded against those domestic policies of the New Deal that he thought were inefficient and... Walter Winchell Walter Winchell was an American newspaper and radio gossip commentator.-Professional career:Born Walter Weinschel in New York City, he left school in the sixth grade and started performing in a vaudeville troupe known as Gus Edwards' "Newsboys Sextet."His career in journalism was begun by posting... Abner Zwillman Abner "Longie" Zwillman , known as the "Al Capone of New Jersey," was an early Prohibition gangster, founding member of the "Big Seven" Ruling Commission and a member of the National Crime Syndicate, who was also associated with Murder Incorporated.-Biography:According to the Social Security Death... |
Secondary bibliography
- Rossi, Umberto. “Philip Roth: Complotto contro l’America o complotto americano?”, Pulp Libri #54, Marzo-Aprile 2005, pp. 4–7.
External links
- "Lucky Lindy Unfortunate Jews", Christian Science Monitor
- New York Times review by Michiko Kakutani
- 'Imagined History', review in the Oxonian Review