The Plot Against America

By: Philip Roth

Narrated by: Ron Silver

Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

In an astonishing feat of empathy and narrative invention, our most ambitious novelist imagines an alternate version of American history.

In 1940 Charles A. Lindbergh, heroic aviator and rabid isolationist, is elected president. Shortly thereafter, he negotiates a cordial "understanding" with Adolf Hitler while the new government embarks on a program of folksy anti-Semitism. For one boy growing up in Newark, Lindbergh's election is the first in a series of ruptures that threaten to destroy his small, safe corner of America - and with it his mother, his father, and his older brother.

©2004 Philip Roth (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Relevant more now than 2004

This book is about 13 years old now but seems to have a particular relevance in today's political climate with "populist" politicians popping up in both the Americas and Europe, candidates supported by the KKK, and a growing sense of a license for violence against "others". One of the last books published by Roth, the author combines Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here and Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle in an alternate history about America's delayed entry into WWII. In Dick's alternate America a historical assassination attempt against FDR is successful, leaving the country without his political charisma to lead the country into the war.

Roth's book is written in memoir style. Roth includes himself in this book about living through the late 30s into the early 40s. He uses the names of his own father and mother (I don't know enough about him to say whether the brothers he includes were actual figures in his life) with telling bits of texture from his life growing up in Newark, New Jersey, at the end of the Depression. Snippets from baseball games, living near the plant that made the family's Ipana tooth powder, third-generation Jewish immigrant life in which his family had given up orthodoxy for assimilation.

In this familiar atmosphere there's a single change that alters their lives. During the 1940 Republican Convention, which went through multiple votes trying to find a candidate to run against Franklin D. Roosevelt, (the real convention chose candidate Wendell Willkie who came into the convention polling at 3%) there's a staged moment at 3 in the morning when Charles Lindbergh enters the convention in his flight costume. This stirs the tired conventioneers into a complete shift, nominating Lindbergh as the Republican candidate. Lindbergh flies from city to city through America and, despite the polls, snatches FDR's third term away from him.

This creates an immediate panic within the Jewish community, particularly for Roth's father Herman. Some powerful rabbinic leaders in the community support Lindbergh despite his many anti-Jewish comments at various America First rallies. Some, including Roth's mother, begin sending savings to Canadian banks with the plan to escape to Canada should pogroms begin in America. Walter Winchell, jewish and the most prominent columnist of his day, begins a campaign against the new president on his radio broadcast and newspaper columns.

The changes to the family's life are slow and subtle. Herman Roth, an insurance salesman, is nearly transferred from Newark to an almost entirely gentile city by his company. The family takes a vacation to Washington, DC, where the family faces regular acts of anti-semitism. Violence continues throughout the country, jewish families are migrated to places like Kentucky as part of a new "homesteading" program where they meet with the violence of the KKK, politicians are assassinated or arrested for their "protection".

It isn't until Lindbergh's real motives are revealed that the progression of horrors ends, finally leaving an opening for FDR to return to political life and fulfill his historical third term.

The book serves to offer several important lessons. There will often be populations in the US (as there have been throughout its history) who will be vilified for problems in the country and slandered with half-truths or outright fictions (blood libel comes up in this book). To stop oppressive changes before they become systemic it's important to stop them in small things within your grasp: nonsensical statements, small incidents of discrimination or racism, small changes to laws that take away freedoms, a focus on all freedoms for all people rather than pet interests or personal freedoms. Voting isn't a chore, it's an essential and important act.

The book, while it centers on Roth as observer and narrator, features a broad range of characters, heroic and horrible, who weave through the book with their own perceptions and motives about what is happening in this alternate nation. The ultimate plot against Lindbergh is a bit hard to swallow. Lindbergh was a strange mixture at that time in history. He was a renowned expert in aviation at a time when this was beginning to become an important part of war machinery. Much of his pacifism was actually a pragmatism over whether the allied powers could overcome the sudden rise of the German war machine. At the same time he was an ardent anti-communist and anti-semite. None of the quotes in the book from his speeches are Roth's invention. On the other hand these things were strong enough to make him the foil in this book without the strange plot twist that Roth introduces to bring the book to a close.

Still, it's a compelling and observant book, still in print, that may resonate with a reader more now than when it was first released.

Weak ending

Roth sets up a very interesting premise with characters fully formed. But it's like he got tired towards the end and needed to wrap up the story quickly. And without good reasons.

But it's uncanny how close the events are to what is happening in 2016.

Wow!

There was moments that I would forget this is a fictional story. The near ration was awesome the story awesome so glad I took the time to listen to this book.

Wonderful novel

Philip Roth was one of those significant 20th century authors who has managed to retreat into the multiple worlds that existed in the now almost mythical mid-1900s. Re-read or just-read, his is a voice we must not lose.

Loved book and narration!

I loved the book, Philip Roth 's writing makes it really easy for the reader to get absorbed in the story. I was also very impressed by the narration. I have little experience with audiobooks, but this one was the best so far and it got me hooked on audiobooks.

What if Charles Lindbergh was president during WWII?

Gotta love Roth. As always he nails it. In a story about one nine year old Jewish boy making sense of his world in 1940’s New York Roth throws him into an America which has just made “Lucky Lindy” Lindbergh it’s first Nazi loving President.
Roth using his own name for the boy and his family name for his relatives. Thus we find ourselves in the middle of Phillip Roth’s own young developing and confused psyche as well as his view of his parents, brother, relatives and the small world of his neighborhood all while having to deal with the added hardships arbitrarily beset upon him by a authoritarian government experimenting with the “Jewish Question”.
Poignant, irreverent and funny as only Roth can do.

Had me going!

Lindbergh, president? really? But with all that is happening in 2020, it might be possible. I personally do not understand why one set of people think they are better than another or one is "owed"more than another. you decide.

Sadly apt for our times

Incredible book with an incredible narrator. I wish Ron Silver had narrated all of Roth’s books before his passing. This was an absolute pleasure to listen to.

Horrifically Relevant

This is a tale of the degradation of American ideals after voters elect a President with anti-semetic views. While it is fiction, there are horrific parallels that can be draws with current events. The story is told from a child's point of view and it extremely well written. I highly recommend this book.

Reading it second time

Excellent book. Had a profound effect on me. Remember every episode. Re-read it. Comparing what is in the book with reality