Philip Roth, Iconic American Novelist, Dies At 85

NEW YORK, NY – Philip Roth, the novelist whose books explored American culture, morals and history, died Tuesday. He was 85 years old.

His biographer, Blake Bailey, made the announcement on Twitter.

"Philip Roth died tonight, surrounded by lifelong friends who loved him dearly," he wrote. "A darling man and our greatest living writer."

In a career that spanned more than 50 years and included books such as "Goodbye, Columbus," "Portnoy's Complaint," and "The Plot Against America," Roth, who had homes in Manhattan and Connecticut, won almost every literary prize imaginable – except the Nobel Prize for Literature.

He first burst onto the literary scene in 1959 when The Paris Review literary magazine published his novella, "Goodbye, Columbus."

The story – and its tone – set the stage for much of his career.

Raised in a middle class Jewish family in Newark, NJ, Roth used his background as a prism through which he presented many of the issues confronting the country. In "Goodbye, Columbus" it was the story of people trapped between tradition and change.

While the novel was acclaimed – and won him his first National Book Award – it also brought him scorn from some in the Jewish community who took offense at his depiction of what they saw as their lives. Roth would be labeled a "self-hating Jew" by some, a tag that he would spend years dodging.

Ten years after "Goodbye, Columbus," Roth was transformed from literary star to celebrity with the publication of his novel "Portnoy's Complaint." A comic – though, at times, dark – story of Alexander Portnoy, "a lust-ridden, mother-addicted, young Jewish bachelor" who, through sexual escapades, seeks to escape from the traditions in which he was raised.

After the celebrity – and notoriety – associated with Portnoy, Roth produced three comic romps in succession. First was "Our Gang," a political satire evocative of the pre-Watergate time in which it was written, "The Breast," a Kafkaesque story of a man who turns into a person-sized breast, and "The Great American Novel," a baseball satire.

It was in "The Breast" that Roth introduced readers to David Kepesh, a character – if not a bit of an alter ego – that he would revisit in two other novels, "The Professor of Desire" and "The Dying Animal."

The use of an alter ego is a construct that Roth would use in other series of books over the years, most notably the creation of Nathan Zuckerman.

Roth would use Zuckerman in nine novels over the years, first in "The Ghost Writer."

That 1979 novel had Zuckerman – then a young writer – staying at the home of a noted novelist named E.I. Lonoff. Also staying in Lonoff's home is a woman named Amy Bellette whom Zuckerman begins to believe to be Anne Frank, having survived the Holocaust.

The book, the first of what was a trilogy of books focusing on Zuckerman – the others being "Zuckerman Unbound" and "The Anatomy Lesson" continued Roth's exploration of the theme of Jewish identity. A novella, "The Prague Orgy," was later included when the books were published in one volume.

In 1976, he met and fell in love with English actress Claire Bloom. They married four years later and would divorce four years after that.

In 1996, Bloom published a memoir, "Leaving a Doll's House," that was scathing in its portrait of Roth. She accused him of having "a deep and irrepressible rage" toward women.

Notably, she accused Roth of refusing to allow her daughter from a previous marriage to live with them because he found her boring.

Roth would move back to the United States and begin what was a fruitful – and, perhaps, his most acclaimed period.

It started in 1995 with "Sabbath's Theater," a novel centered on Mickey Sabbath, a puppeteer in his 60s who reveled in his image as "a dirty old man." The novel follows Sabbath as he delights in acting as a puppeteer with people. The book won Roth his second National Book Award.

In 1998, he published "American Pastoral," which won him his only Pulitzer Prize. It was followed by "I Married a Communist" and "The Human Stain."

Unlike his previous books, these were rooted in American history, in events that defined parts of the last half of the 20th Century. He would refer to them as his "American Trilogy."

His last novel, "Nemesis" – which, as many of his other novels had, dealt with the issue of guilt – was published in 2010. One year later, in 2011, Roth was given the National Humanities Medal by President Obama.

The following year he announced that he would no longer write novels. He would famously say that he had a Post-it note on his computer reading, "The struggle with writing is done."

It was a decision that effectively removed him from consideration for the Nobel Prize for Literature, which is supposed to be awarded to a living writer who is currently writing.

In addition to his fiction, Roth worked tirelessly promoting human rights with a focus on writers behind the Iron Curtain in the early 1970s. He frequently traveled to Czechoslovakia where he befriended writers such as Vaclav Havel and Milan Kundera.

He would edit collections of writings from Eastern Bloc authors, pieces about them and interviews with them.

Roth would also famously get into a spat with Wikipedia over his objections to its entry on his novel, "The Human Stain."

They refused to make any changes, prompting him to write an open letter that The New Yorker published.

"'I understand your point that the author is the greatest authority on their own work,' writes the Wikipedia Administrator — 'but we require secondary sources.'

"Thus was created the occasion for this open letter. After failing to get a change made through the usual channels, I don’t know how else to proceed."

FOR MORE ON ROTH:

THE NEW YORK TIMES

THE NEW YORKER

THE PARIS REVIEW

President Barack Obama presents the 2010 National Humanities Medal to novelist Philip Roth during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House, on March 2, 2011 in Washington, DC. President Obama presented the 2010 National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal to 20 honorees (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)