An American Type

by Henry Roth, Willing Davidson (Editor)

“His early novel Call It Sleep was his Ulysses . His late work An American Type is his Grapes of Wrath .”―Thane Rosenbaum, Los Angeles Times This “glorious, evocative, literary novel for the ages” ( Los Angeles Times ) has finally taken its place within the great canon of American fiction. Set during the Great Depression, against a backdrop of New York’s glimmering skyscrapers and Los Angeles’s seedy motor courts, this autobiographical work concludes the unparalleled saga of Henry Roth, whose classic Call It Sleep , published in 1934, went on to become one of Time ’s 100 best American novels of the twentieth century. With echoes of Nathanael West and John Steinbeck, An American Type is a heartrending statement about American identity and the universal transcendence of love.

Genres: Fiction, Novels, New York

273 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2010

Reviews

[Richard Derus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating: 3.5* of five

Posthumous books don't often turn out well (eg, Dream of Fair to Middling Women oh dear oh dear). Books excavated from immense piles of prose don't often turn out well (eg, Of Time and the River, echhh) either. And this book is both. Did it turn out well? Compared to Call It Sleep, no. Compared to much of the publishing world's present output, yeah.

I found Ira, the author's alter ego, to be a bit tedious in all Roth's books. I don't love Rabbit Angstrom (John Updike's most famous character) either. But editor Willing Davidson (what a great name!) found some less irritatingly self-absorbed things to focus this novel on than, say, the entire book A Star Shines Over Mt. Morris Park, which I found nigh on unreadably whiny. Ira's love for his wife M is a huge point in his favor, and though she is never brought to life in the text but is instead shorthanded in as "aureate" or "golden" or smilingly bathed in the sort of light that the Virgin Mary is usually portrayed lit by, she remains the believeable focus of Ira's striving and working and expending effort on. It's curious how that happened; I usually have a hard time with characters that are sketched in when they occupy a central place in a narrative. I felt M, represented by a simple single letter, was appropriately left as an Object of Veneration; it was *right* somehow that she was a collection of qualities with no recognizable voice of her own.

Edith, God love her, is as much a cipher as ever, and luckily little missed in this book.

I compare this mining job to the pseudo-weighty Jonathan Littell and Andrea Levy stuff lighting things up in Literatureland; An American Type is refreshingly honest and clear and taut compared to those book, among others I've read that have received unstinting praise. It deserves a place on every Roth lover's shelves. I won't recommend it wholeheartedly because it's a bit dull compared to his brilliant first book, and fourth book (A Diving Rock on the Hudson). But give it a chance...there is magic at the very end, worth working for, worth making the effort to see...much like Roth felt life was, I think.

[Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I suppose when a major author dies, there’s always the hope that we’ll find among his or her papers that undiscovered masterpiece to be posthumously published and enjoyed by all. So I can understand Willing Davidson’s enthusiasm and excitement when he was handed the task of reading through Henry Roth’s papers, to see if there was anything salvageable. And with the publication of An American Type, Davidson has done a fine job of demonstrating that there definitely was some wonderful writing there.

The problem with the book, it seems to me, is that it really never comes together as a novel – its many short (sometimes no more than a page or two) vignettes or incidents never provide the necessary weight and coherence a novel should deliver. It’s a shame the work couldn’t have been published as a collection of short pieces (or simply notes for a novel, as in the case of the recent volume of Nabokov’s notes for the unpublished Laura), rather than being forced into a form that doesn’t really suit it.

The book's main character, Ira, never really gained my full sympathy or interest. It’s true that he has a distinct voice and outlook, and his adventures, sketchy and scattered though they may be, were at times compelling and maddening, and sometimes all too believable. But the constant focus on one character’s thoughts and feelings and behavior became irritating after a while. Davidson says in his editor’s afterword that Roth “couldn’t leave anything out – he found all personal detail equally engrossing.” And it shows. But the parts of the book I found most appealing were those brief moments when Roth turns his concentration away from Ira and gives other characters some space on stage – I would have welcomed a little more of that.

However, I ended up enjoying most of the book a great deal, and I’d certainly recommend it to other readers. Even with its failings, the novel is filled with some beautiful writing, and provides a fascinating glimpse of a very rough period in our history.

Note: This review refers to an advance reading copy of the novel, provided by the publisher, through the Early Reviewer Program at Library Thing.

[Cristiana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Roth's modernist novel about a young Jewish immigrant growing up in the slums of the Lower East Side during the depression, Call It Sleep, was published in 1934 and achieved popular status when it was republished 30 years later. In the meantime, Roth had an attack of writer's block that lasted until 1979, and an eclectic list of jobs ranging from laborer to Latin tutor. Only towards the end of his life did he return to writing anything more than short stories, and An American Type — posthumously edited by Willing Davidson, a fiction editor at the New Yorker — is a final addendum to his four-volume autobiographical novel, Mercy of a Rude Stream.

An American Type begins at Yaddo, the writer's colony, where Ira has holed up to write his second novel (it's not going very well). He meets and falls in love with M, Anglo‑Saxon and "lesbian-seeming", and returns to New York to extricate himself from his financially dependent relationship with his mentor, Edith. Unable to wrench himself away cleanly, Ira journeys to the promised land of California in the company of Bill, a communist who rants about the "petty boojwasi"; he is met by disappointment. Ira, therefore decides to make a return journey; one that conjures up a Depression-era On the Road, effectively in reverse.

This novel doesn't have Kerouac's energy or 1960s optimism; Ira is a gentler, more sensitive creature, prone to overanalysis and nerves. But the characters are as vivid, the scenes as fresh. Living conditions are sobering: "His father could feel the head of the revolting creature [a tapeworm] rear up in his throat." An American Type asks the point of art in times when it's tough scraping together enough money to buy food. But it is, in itself, an answer, and one pertinent to this anxious modern era.

[Christian Schwoerke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Risen from the dead, Henry Roth continues to write, edit, polish, and publish. …Not exactly. Ushering this novel through publication was the work of an admiring New Yorker editor who took a long sabbatical to cull a solid chunk of Roth’s remaining 1700 pages of notes and narrative to form this novel. The story falls within the canon created by Roth in his four-volume Mercy of a Rude Stream, and Roth’s distinctive voice and bewilderment at the mystery of his life shine through. It’s not as immersive a journey as any one of those volumes—but it does conjure the same flow in a back-and-forth ebb in fictive time, and it describes his autobiographical persona’s break with his lover and his attempts to strike out on his own, ending with his marriage to M, she who is the mercy/island to which the rude stream of his life has led him.

[Ed · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel about a writer who, after writing a successful novel, is unable to write another (like Mr. Roth) is a series of episodes laid out in chronological sequence. I read it as a character study of a man who is unable to face difficulties and consequently is swept passively along by events. When he tries to take charge of his life he lurches into things without thinking them through. All this makes for a hard slog for the reader. Fortunately Mr. Roth is a fine writer and that carried me along. I thought the climax of the book was oddly upbeat, but when I read the final chapter I realized Mr. Roth had shown his character still unable to face reality.

[Álvaro Martín Rodríguez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Completo la trilogía de Roths leyendo a Henry. Me ha recordado a algún libro de Philip, imposible no hacerlo con la historia de un escritor judío y sus coqueteos con el partido comunista en USA, pero con muchísimo menos brillo, no era un libro largo y se me ha hecho.

[Jane · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wasted my time reading this book. I should have taken heed of other reviews on this site.

[Stefan Koepeknie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good considering it was put together from an unorganized rough draft after his death.

[Vassilis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well ok

[Brett · Rating 2 out of 5]

A moderately engrossing book about an extremely pathetic man.

[Billy · Rating 4 out of 5]

No body of literature appeals to me more than the five volumes of Mercy of a Rude Stream (I'm counting An American Type as vol. 5). While this last book lacks some of the drive and intensity of the original four (perhaps because it was compiled after Roth died) I consider the five books to be without compare.

Nothing is darker or grimmer than Mercy of a Rude Stream and nothing more hopeful, nothing more real. It is the total unburdening, the complete confrontation of self. It is failure and stagnation followed by, in old age, an obsessive act of creation. I leave you with this painful description of the author's pettiness in breaking with his wife's parents over a trivial request made by the mother of M, his beloved wife:

"The act was one of the most boorish Ira was ever guilty of. He thought of Joyce and his stormy, unbending refusal to accede to his dying mother's plea that he kneel in bedside prayer for her sake. Tandem idiots--to refuse to comply by a meaningless gesture to a meaningless request, especially when some little kindness could be accorded by doing so, something worthwhile: like comforting a dying mother, like enabling M to preserve her ties with her family."

[T.P. Williams · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having read "Call It Sleep," and the four volumes of "Mercy of a Rude Stream," I was looking forward to this book, assembled or edited by a New Yorker editor. Break up scene with Edith was riveting and scenes and people described in the Los Angeles section of book were memorable. However, writing of "M," the author's wife was not credible, nor has it been in any of the books. Nary a negative word, a bruised feeling, a character flaw or imperfection is written of her. It rings false in light of the manner the author engages in self-flagellation and in well-rounded descriptions of other characters. "M" is one dimensional throughout. As if the author, so brutally frank in other respects cannot bear to do the same to her. Maybe he could only write effectively about toxic relationships (Edith, his father, etc.). A disappointment.

[Elalma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Non ho ritrovato qui la forza narrativa, la lingua vivace e quella freschezza che hanno fatto di "Chiamalo Sonno" un grande romanzo; ho apprezzato solo quegli sprazzi in cui si faceva riferimento alle origini, alla sua infanzia e alla sua famiglia. Forse man mano che procedeva l'integrazione americana, veniva meno davvero l'ispirazione. Commoventi e vive, però, le pagine dedicate alla moglie scomparsa e tanto amata.

[Steve Reid · Rating 2 out of 5]

Since this book was assembled from notes and other pieces after the author's death I can't entirely fault the author for what has turned out to be quite a rambler with an unsympathetic main character. I read "Call it Sleep" a hundred years ago and as I recall it was pretty decent, maybe even award-winning. This one not so much.

[Ryan Chapman · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book felt too cobbled together, showing too many seams for me to really enjoy it. Probably interesting for fans of the author, but otherwise I say pass.

[Eoin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though not of the caliber of his masterpieces, Roth still manages to sting and resonate post mortem. The painful part is that even his unfinished, unintended work is worth reading.

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tough to give a review about a book that was edited and published posthumously. Who knows what Roth would have done with it. In any case, not even in the same league as Call it Sleep.