Rent When She Was Good

Synopsis

...it should be emphasized that 'When She Was Good', both in its sustained theme and its detail work, is a step in class above most recent novels: up on the edge, in fact, where stringent standards set in. Roth is a serious writer, willing to turn his face against fashion and the expected, and to take improbable chances. It requires guts to produce a 19th-century novel at this point. To produce a passably good one requires a bit more--an eccentric dedication, a functioning nostalgia and a wayward point of view. For these, and one or two other reasons, Roth is one of our few important writers concerning whose future it is possible to feel anything like real curiosity.

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