Letting Go

Publisher Marketing: Letting Go is Philip Roth s first full-length novel, published just after Goodbye, Columbus, when he was twenty-nine. Set in 1950s Chicago, New York, and Iowa City, Letting Go presents as brilliant a fictional portrait as we have of a mid-century America defined by social and ethical constraints and by moral compulsions conspicuously different from those of today. Newly discharged from the Korean War army, reeling from his mother s recent death, freed from old attachments and hungrily seeking others, Gabe Wallach is drawn to Paul Herz, a fellow graduate student in literature, and to Libby, Paul s moody, intense wife. Gabe s desire to be connected to the ordered world of feeling that he finds in books is first tested vicariously by the anarchy of the Herzes struggles with responsible adulthood and then by his own eager love affairs. Driven by the desire to live seriously and act generously, Gabe meets an impassable test in the person of Martha Reganhart, a spirited, outspoken, divorced mother of two, a formidable woman who, according to critic James Atlas, is masterfully portrayed with depth and resonance. The complex liaison between Gabe and Martha and Gabe s moral enthusiasm for the trials of others are at the heart of this ambitious first novel. [Roth] has the finest eye for the details of American life since Sinclair Lewis. Stanley Edgar Hyman" Review Citations: Booklist 11/15/2001 pg. 555 (EAN 9780679764175, Paperback) Publishers Weekly 08/18/1997 (EAN 9780679764175, Paperback) Wilson Fiction Catalog 01/01/1995 pg. 565 (EAN 9780394433059, Hardcover) Wilson Fiction Catalog 01/01/2000 pg. 571 (EAN 9780394433059, Hardcover) Wilson Fiction Catalog 01/01/2006 pg. 813 (EAN 9780394433059, Hardcover) Wilson Fiction Catalog 01/01/2010 pg. 792 (EAN 9780394433059, Hardcover) Contributor Bio:  Roth, Philip In 1997, Philip Roth won the Pulitzer Prize for AMERICAN PASTORAL. In 1998 he received the National Medal of Arts at the White House and in 2002 the highest award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Gold Medal in Fiction, previously awarded to John Dos Passos, William Faulkner, and Saul Bellow, among others. He has twice won the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He has won the PEN/Faulkner Award three times. In 2005 THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA received the Society of American Historians prize for the outstanding historical novel on an American theme for 2003-2004. Recently Roth received PEN s two most prestigious prizes: in 2006 the PEN/Nabokov Award and in 2007 the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for achievement in American fiction. Roth is the only living American writer to have his work published in a comprehensive, definitive edition by the Library of America. Contributor Bio:  Daniels, Luke Luke Daniels has narrated over 250 audiobooks, has been the grateful recipient of thirteen "AudioFile" Earphones Awards, and has earned three Audie nominations. His background is in classical theater and film. Luke has performed at repertory theaters around the country, but now he resides in the Midwest with his pack.