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common1 's review for:
Indignation
by Philip Roth
Marcus Messner is a young man who cannot tolerate constraint. His overprotective father, a neighborhood butcher, is obsessed with the possible harms that await his son, Marcus -- both real and imaginary threats. Roth effortlessly spins a humorous, historically-conscious tale of a young man in rebellion, a young man who finds the customs and constrictions of 1950s America unbearable and through his inexperience, resistance, repression, and sheer bullheadedness makes decisions that lead to dire consequences. Roth describes how -- like the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s -- the Korean War shaped the lives of young men in the 1950s and led to many unnecessary deaths ("We lost Davey in the Korean War... I still don't know what for" -- John Prine). Since this is Roth, of course there's a little sex. And the writing is wonderful, graceful, taut.