Houghton Mifflin Company is proud to present Goodbye, Columbus, for which Philip Roth has been awarded a Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship.
A short novel of major scope and impact, Goodbye, Columbus captures the exuberance and bewilderment of young Americans who find that beyond love-making they must still grope for love. It is the story of Brenda Patimkin, who has all a man could want (and maybe a little more), and of a young man on his way up, who finds among the Patimkins a world so determinedly opulent it's funny— and so funny it hurts.
At twenty-six, Philip Roth is a master storyteller. This is the real thing — fiction as wonderful, as outrageous, as unpredictable as life.
A succession of brilliant short stories has introduced Philip Roth to the readers of The New Yorker, Esquire, Commentary, and The Paris Review. And as a second part of this double volume you will find five of his best — each story wholly itself, yet each dramatizing another aspect of America today, seen through the comic or tragic predicament of an American Jew faced with two worlds, either of which he could try to make his own.
Take Eli Peck, whose community is threatened. It's a fine American commuter town — mostly Jewish, if you come right down to it, but they aren't making a point of it. And when a whole rabbinical orphanage descends on them from central Europe, funny black hats and all . . . Well, Eli, you're a bright young lawyer, explain to them about zoning. Go ahead, explain.
Or take young Ozzie, who won't take no answer for an answer. Or Sergeant Marx, who has done what a man could in combat, but finds that a bunch of teen-age trainees can demand still more. Or Epstein, that sad old rogue. Lovers, in spite of themselves, of life and the outside chances it offers.
Take them for all in all, as various and engaging a collection of adventurers as you're ever likely to meet in one book. Take it for all in all, a major literary event.
