Plans For Near Future Reading

Today I checked my email and I got this notice from my local public library

The following item(s) you requested may be available for pickup at the your
branch circulation desk or curbside.

The item(s) will be held for 6 days from the date of this notice.

Thank you

  1   Philip Roth : the biography / Blake Bailey.
      Bailey, Blake, 1963-
      call number:B ROTH                                      copy:1   
        Pickup by:4/27/2021 

And then, a few minutes later, I browsed the New York Times and came across an article about Blake Bailey, the author of this biography of Philip Roth.

Earlier this month, the biographer Blake Bailey was approaching what seemed like the apex of his literary career. Reviews of his highly anticipated Philip Roth biography appeared before the book came out, with major stories in magazines and literary publications. It landed on the New York Times best-seller list this week.

Now, allegations against Mr. Bailey, 57, have emerged, including claims that he sexually assaulted two women, one as recently as 2015, and that he behaved inappropriately toward middle school students when he was a teacher in the 1990s.

His publisher, W.W. Norton, took swift and unusual action: It said on Wednesday that it had stopped shipments and promotion of his book. “These allegations are serious,” it said in a statement. “In light of them, we have decided to pause the shipping and promotion of ‘Philip Roth: The Biography’ pending any further information that may emerge.”

Norton, which initially printed 50,000 copies of the title, has stopped a 10,000-copy second printing that was scheduled to arrive in early May. It has also halted advertising and media outreach, and events that Norton arranged to promote the book are being canceled. The pullback from the publisher came just days after Mr. Bailey’s literary agency, The Story Factory, said it had dropped him as a client.

What is one to make of all this? 

I previously read Bailey's biography of John Cheever and was quite impressed. And many of the reviews of Bailey's book have been positive. For instance, James Parker in The Atlantic notes that Roth wrote about the repellent and the libidinous in his novels.

Blake Bailey’s Philip Roth comes flapping at us like a magnificent albatross through the mist, a heavy, feathery projectile from beyond the rim of time ... Bailey is a very good writer and a very good literary biographer ... I think it’s unlikely that Philip Roth gets Philip Roth wrong. Bailey certainly lets the repellent in, and along with it comes the man in his wholeness ... By the (very moving) end of Philip Roth, the sex drive and the writing drive both having finally ebbed, Roth is ready to go: 'Boy, am I getting tired of my resilience.'

I expect I will read Bailey's biography soon and I also hope to do a deep dive into Roth's novels. But I am now certainly aware that Roth was often accused of being a misogynist and now I am aware of the serious allegations against Blake Bailey.