Nemesis

“ What makes Roth such an important novelist is the effortless way he brings together the trivial and the profoundly serious, and nowhere is this more in evidence than his late books ”

Independent

“ This is such an emotionally harrowing story ”

Daily Mail

“ Outstanding ”

Sunday Times

“ Very fine, very unsettling ”

Douglas Kennedy, The Times

“ A perfectly proportioned Greek tragedy played out against the background of the polio epidemic that swept Newark, New Jersey, during the summer of 1944 ”

Adrian Turpin, Financial Times

“ Cantor is one of Roth's best creations and the atmosphere of terror is masterfully fashioned ”

Tibor Fischer, Sunday Telegraph

“ Nemesis is an artfully constructed suspenseful novel with a cunning twist ”

The New York Review of Books, J.M. Coetzee

“ Heart-wrenchingly powerful ”

Sunday Times

“ Nemesis is brief, astoundingly assured and devastating ”

Chris Wayell, Time Out

“ The "tyranny of contingency" is his theme and he pursues it with the cool, bleak brutality of a Greek tragedian ”

Siobhan Murphy, Metro

“ Roth is best known for sex and jokes, and Nemesis features neither, but it is a masterly performance none the less: an angry kaddish, or furious act of mourning, as deft and subtle in its construction as it is wrenchingly violent emotionally. Unmistakably a late work, it recalls Beethoven's Op. 127 ”

Lewis Jones, Spectator

“ Roth's book has the elegance of a fable and the tragic inevitability of a Greek drama. ”

New Yorker

“ Roth has given us a novel that is as movingand surprising as it is cruel and melancholy. ”

Jason Cowley, New Statesman, Christmas round up

“ An affecting work, with a memorable twist ”

Daily Telegraph, Christmas round up

“ I admired Philip Roth's Nemesis ”

David Nicholls, Guardian, Christmas round up

“ Roth's best novel for some time. ”

Rose Tremain, Guardian, Christmas round up

“ Grave little masterpiece ”

David Sexton, Evening Standard, Christmas round up

“ A story simply told ”

Alan Taylor, Sunday Herald, Christmas round up

“ Roth is a superb narrator, and the pace and balance of this fairly short work is excellent. The Newark of 1944 as well as the idyllic nostalgic summer camp of Indian Hill is evoked with feeling and emotion ”

Historical Novels Review

“ This is Vintage Roth: the story of a good man worn down - and finally ruined - by circumstance. Everything about it is perfectly judged...the writing throughout is flawless and the ending, when it comes, is both clever and profoundly moving. ”

Observer

“ An elegiac and eloquent late work that brims with unexpected sentiment ”

Emma Hagestadt, Independent

“ It's hauntingly scary...a very well-told story ”

William Leith, Evening Standard

“ A superbly managed novel. It may not be long, but it's full, complete. Roth's ear has never been better, and there is an almost unbelievable mastery of technique in the way that the prose slips between narrative and speech. This is unputdownable, and although it is one of my jobs to show you how authors do this kind of thing, I can't here, except by invoking some kind of magical talent on Roth's part. ”

Nicholas Lezard, Guardian

“ Exceptional ”

Metro

“ A poignant, humane novel about how brute bad luck can interfere with one's hopes of becoming a hero. The theme is reminiscent of Lord Jim - but for me, this goes deeper than Conrad's novel and is a better read too. ”

Independent on Sunday

“ Roth's magnificent novel takes you into a city sweltering with heat and fear... Characters brim with complex believability and, from its perfect choice of narrator to its beautifully exact prose, everything seems in place but never cut and dried: quandaries reverberate around the inexorable momentum of its storyline. ”

Peter Kemp, Sunday Times

“ A very well-told story ”

William Leith, Scotsman

“ Nemesis - if it's not too sinister to say so - is a breath of fresh air, because polio provides Roth with a new, outward-looking and substantial subject around which his writing can thrive; and, perhaps for this reason, the book contains many of the things that I find most exhilarating in his work ”

Observer