A review by jeannemixon
Nemesis by Philip Roth

5.0

Such a sad book. Begins with the summer of 1944, during World War II, when Newark is gripped with an epidemic of polio. No one knows what causes the disease and there are no cures besides the dreaded iron lung. At the center of the story is a man, Bucky, 23 years old, who today we would say suffers from toxic masculinity -- he is a PE instructor completely obsessed with the physical He is an ideal -- believes in hard work, honesty, integrity, discipline, kindness and love -- and his belief system is shattered by his inability to know how the disease is spread and why children suffer the most. Roth with his hyper realistic style captures what it was like to be a child in Newark at the time -- eating hotdogs at Syds, playing at the local rec center, suffering in the heat before air conditioning. He describes families fleeing Newark for the Jersey shore and children fleeing to privileged summer camps in the Poconos. Bucky not only struggles with the inability of his code of manhood to adapt to the tragedy of disease (which is like a war with an invisible enemy), but also his anger at a God who would allow children to suffer. The book flies by and at times feels like a polemic. The characters are definitely constructed to make certain points and allow Roth to make certain counterpoints, but in the end you really feel for Bucky trapped in his inflexible physical and theological straitjackets.