The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

For one short little book, "Plot Against America" is two brotherly stories beating each other senseless in the basement while the parents watch TV upstairs. The first book is an alternate 1940 where Roosevelt is voted out, Charles Lindbergh voted in, and the day is won by Isolationism and Antisemitism. The second is a look at Roth's childhood reflected within the mirror of that alternate history, based on the real-life tensions in his neighborhood.

Not to be THAT parent, but I have a favorite.

I really got into the portrait of 40's America where the negative feelings towards Jews, bubbling under the surface, was suddenly given a gate to roam free; and how that would look to a child who has had the city, and land, that he grew up loving turn it's back on him for no reasons he can understand. Roth's writing is just as good, as the previous book of his that I consumed. The way that current events alternately tear apart and cement together Roth's family, feels like a real life. And there are little touches, like Roth's childhood stamp collection played as adolescent innocence: Held proud, worried over, and eventually lost. I really liked those aspects of the book, which there were not nearly enough of.

Unfortunately, there's the other brother, and man, those other brothers always ruin everything, don't they? (What?) Look, I saw all the books Roth took in for historical context, clearly he did his homework on this one. I just didn't need so much detailed history. Or rather, I didn't want it, when I was enjoying the smaller, personal look at Roth's family. And the plot twist at the end, when it is revealed that famous Lindbergh kidnapping in 1932 was done by the Nazis, in an attempt to eventually place Lindbergh in power so he can force an American holocaust...that took the collective goodwill that Roth had built up and smashed it all over the sidewalk. I have nothing against Alternative History, but the struggle to focus on the parts of the book I liked was tough enough, and a Nazi-Lindbergh conspiracy was the sucker-punch that won the basement war, and left me disappointed. I like "Plot Against America", but I think about what it could have been.


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