Nemesis

May 30, 2011
Roth's compact latest novel rounds out his quartetâEveryman, Indignation, and The Humblingâaddressing mortality. WWII-era Newark is in the grip of a rampant polio scare. Bucky Cantor, the fearless, 4F playground director valiantly holds the fort against the disease and protects his charges, until matters take a deadly turn. Dennis Boutsikaris, himself a Newark native, can sound a bit young in parts, sapping the listening of some of the book's dark majesty. But his reading conveys the book's aura, its nostalgia and horror. A Houghton Mifflin Harcourt hardcover.

August 2, 2010
Roth continues his string of small, anti–Horatio Alger novels (The Humbling; etc.) with this underwhelming account of Bucky Cantor, the young playground director of the Chancellor Avenue playground in 1944 Newark. When a polio outbreak ravages the kids at the playground, Bucky, a hero to the boys, becomes spooked and gives in to the wishes of his fiancée, who wants him to take a job at the Pocono summer camp where she works. But this being a Roth novel, Bucky can't hide from his fate. Fast-forward to 1971, when Arnie Mesnikoff, the subtle narrator and one of the boys from Chancellor, runs into Bucky, now a shambles, and hears the rest of his story of piercing if needless guilt, bad luck, and poor decisions. Unfortunately, Bucky's too simple a character to drive the novel, and the traits that make him a good playground director—not very bright, quite polite, beloved, straight thinking—make him a lackluster protagonist. For Roth, it's surprisingly timid.