A review by johndiconsiglio
Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth

Before American Pie’s protagonist found creative uses for deserts, the late-great Philip Roth beat him to it—with liver. His 1969 classic is remembered (fairly) for its outrageousness & (unfairly) as an extended Jewish joke. In a monologue to his therapist, Portnoy fumes about his suffocating parents & lusts after shiksas. (“The Raskolnikov of jerking-off,” Portnoy bookends with 1996’s Mickey Sabbath, who could give anyone a rub for his money.) It cemented Roth’s reputation as literature’s l’enfant terrible &, to critics, a self-hating Jew. He’s more complicated. “Why are you doing this to me?” v. “Why can’t I ever stop loving you?”