Great Reading: The Plot Against America, Philip Roth

Philip Roth is one of the most prolifically surprising American authors of the 20th and 21st centuries. After achieving international fame with Goodbye Columbus and Portnoy’s Complaint in the sixties, he turned to less popular fiction in the coming years and disappeared from the bestseller lists and the eye of the general public.
   The Plot against America, first published in 2004 was hailed by critics and readers alike and returned him to the public light. In the book, Roth takes a single historic event from American history and shows, very convincingly, how it could have changed the face of history and the world as we know it. Charles Lindbergh was an unknown, obscure, American air mail pilot. His solo flight from Long Island to Paris in May 1927, captured the imagination of a nation and made him a hero. He became an outspoken opposer of America joining the world war, which forms the premise for this novel.
   Charles Lindbergh, the American hero, is elected President of the United States and shortly after negotiates a cordial understanding with Adolph Hitler. The results are a growing acceptance of Anti-Semitism in America and a frightening retelling of history as we know it.
   Told in first person, through the eyes of young Philip, and the affect of events on his immediate family, the novel paints a story of how easy it is manipulate public opinion and change public belief. The biggest problem one is faced while reading this book is how plausable it all sounds. A great, provocative yet intimate novel that should be on everyone’s reading list