PositiveThe Orange County Register... provides a solid defense of the author as a literary giant in postwar America ... Bailey, who has previously written the biographies of other literary titans looks at Roth without providing the usual leeway the novelist gave himself in his fiction ... Given that Bailey had Roth’s approval and unique access to his unseen archives, we now see how and why Roth hid behind the thin veil of his writing. The 31 novels, of course, already exist, but now readers can finally know Roth in relation to the people that shaped his life and work — especially the relationships that motivated his more controversial writing ... \'Don’t try to rehabilitate me,\' Roth told Bailey. \'Just make me interesting.\' And at that, he’s succeeded.
