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- Title
Predicting Trump and Presenting Canada in Philip Roth's The Plot against America.
- Authors
Ward, Maggie
- Abstract
In an essay published in the New York Times a month prior to the release of The Plot against America, Philip Roth writes that it ''would be a mistake'' to ''take this book as a roman a' clef to the present moment in America'' (''Story''). Despite this, many reviewers and critics find it nearly impossible to ignore the (albeit inexact) parallels between the historicalpolitical moment Roth reimagines and twenty-first-century American politics. The election of Donald Trump demonstrates the ease with which Roth's fictional political moment has manifested itself in the current state of politics in the United States. However, to concentrate exclusively on drawing these connections and to ignore Roth's historical focus is not productive. Notably, Canada in Roth's fiction is depicted as a place of liberation from anti-Semitic persecution, yet the real Canada during this era, a period that has been called ''the bleakest chapter in Canadian history'' (Klein xviii), very closely resembles Roth's fictional America.
- Subjects
PLOT Against America, The (Book); ROTH, Philip, 1933-2018; CANADA in literature; TRUMP, Donald, 1946-; FASCISM in literature; LINDBERGH, Charles A. (Charles Augustus), 1902-1974
- Publication
Canadian Review of American Studies, 2017, p17
- ISSN
0007-7720
- Publication type
Literary Criticism
- DOI
10.3138/cras.2017.008