''I Married a Communist'' is a
Philip Roth
Philip Milton Roth (March 19, 1933 – May 22, 2018) was an American novelist and short story writer.
Roth's fiction—often set in his birthplace of Newark, New Jersey—is known for its intensely autobiographical character, for philosophicall ...
novel concerning the rise and fall of Ira Ringold, known as "Iron Rinn." The story is narrated by
Nathan Zuckerman, and is one of a trio of Zuckerman novels Roth wrote in the 1990s depicting the postwar history of
Newark, New Jersey
Newark ( , ) is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, most populous City (New Jersey), city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the county seat, seat of Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County and the second largest city within the New Yo ...
and its residents.
Ira and his brother Murray serve as two immense influences on the school-age Zuckerman, and the story is told as a contemporary reminiscence between Murray and Nathan on Ira's life. Although a communist, Ira became a star in
radio theater. Personal conflicts with
McCarthyite
McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner.
The term origin ...
politicians, a gossip columnist, and his daughter-addled and manipulative wife all combine to destroy Ira and many of those around him.
Contents
The novel tells the story of a great betrayal: Ira Ringold, laborer, upstanding communist and then media star, is socially annihilated by his wife Eve in the book, 'My Husband, the Communist'; in the paranoia of the 1950s 'McCarthy' era, almost nobody dares to show solidarity or support.
The rise and fall of the angry Ira Ringold (Latin: ira means anger) is told by his older brother, the teacher Murray Ringold, to his former student Nathan Zuckerman, who in turn tells the story to the readership as Philip Roth's alter ego.
Claire Bloom controversy
Some reviewers, especially those in the British press such as Rachelle Thackray of ''The Independent''
and
Linda Grant of ''The Guardian'',
consider the character of Eve Frame — the antisemitic wife who destroys Ira — to be a barely disguised riposte to Roth's ex-wife,
Claire Bloom
Patricia Claire Bloom (born 15 February 1931) is an English actress. She is known for leading roles in plays such as ''A Streetcar Named Desire,'' ''A Doll's House'', and '' Long Day's Journey into Night'', and has starred in nearly sixty film ...
, for her unflattering memoirs, which portrayed Roth as unable to bottle his vanity and incapable of living in the same household with Bloom's daughter,
Anna Steiger
Anna Justine Steiger (born 13 February 1960 Slonimsky, Nicolas and Kuhn, Laura (eds.) (2001)"Steiger, Anna" ''Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians'', 10th Edition, Volume 6. Accessed online via Highbeam, 12 July 2012.) is a British and Am ...
.
Linda Grant writes of the similarities between Claire Bloom and Eve Frame:
Frame is a Jewish actress, so is Bloom. Frame's second husband is a financier, so was Bloom's. Eve Frame has a daughter who is a harpist, Bloom's girl is an opera singer. Ira tells the daughter to move out, Roth did the same. Ira has an affair with the daughter's best friend; Roth, Bloom alleged, came on to her own daughter's best friend.
She argues ''I Married a Communist'' "is not a novel", but rather, "an angry, bitter, resentful mess by a man who might have taken another course."
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:I Married A Communist
1998 American novels
Ambassador Book Award-winning works
Novels by Philip Roth
Novels set in Newark, New Jersey
Houghton Mifflin books