I’ve read at least half of this Philip Roth dystopia before, but a) wasn’t sure that I ever finished it and b) felt it may be a little close to the reality in 2025… which it very much was.
Set in the early 1940s, it follows the life of a Jewish American family as the world around them darkens due to Charles Lindbergh being elected President. An alternative history of a Hitler-aligned candidate reaching the highest office and the subsequent steady march of fascism gradually eroding at the opportunities and freedoms of the Jewish community, the novel is threaded with the sensation of normality being replaced by an all consuming terror – but with constant disbelief that it could possibly happen.
The mixing of actual characters from US history woven into genuine events of the time adds to the feeling of a terrible and unstoppable new reality. That our narrator is a boy, bringing childhood innocence, rumour, and confusion simply deepens the pathos.
Reading against the backdrop of a Trump second term, the thin veneer of civilisation that sits between us and rule by fascist becomes all too apparent. Some lines from the book could have been written directly about the 47th President’s policies:
“An independent destiny for America” – that was the phrase Lindbergh repeated some fifteen times in his State of the Union speech and again at the close of his address on the night of June 22. When I asked my father to explain what the words meant – absorbed by the headlines and weighed down by all my anxious thoughts, I was more and more asking what everything meant – he frowned and said, “It means turning our back on our friends. It means making friends with their enemies. You know what it means, son? It means destroying everything that America stands for.”
And others perfectly describe the environment and culture that underpins Trump:
Mayor La Guardia says, “There’s a plot afoot all right, and I’ll gladly name the forces propelling it – hysteria, ignorance, malice, stupidity, hatred, and fear. What a repugnant spectacle our country has become! Falsehood, cruelty, and madness everywhere, and brute force in the wings waiting to finish us off.”
There are also perfect descriptions of the overreach of the Trump state using the military to oppress it’s own people:
Tank and infantry units of the U.S. Army enter New York to assist the National Guard in putting down sporadic antigovernment street violence. In Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston attempts to mount protest demonstrations against the FBI-demonstrations in violation of martial law-result only in minor injuries, though arrests numbering in the hundreds are reported by police.
As with all great dystopias, a fantastic but highly worrying read…
