PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT

Roth’s comic novel, his most popular and most admired, receives a stellar reading by Ron Silver in this vintage recording. The story features Alexander Portnoy’s stream-of-consciousness outpouring to his shrink about the emasculating conflict between his overactive libido and his equally overactive neuroses. Portnoy exemplifies that second generation of Jewish-American urban men, born between the onslaught of the Great Depression and the end of WWII—those self-tortured high achievers whose sacrificing parents gave them their tremendous drive, their equally tremendous guilt, and a life-saving self-deprecating humor. The late Ron Silver, himself of that generation, risibly communicates his perfect insight into Portnoy’s character and Philip Roth’s laughter. Silver has the light touch needed for comedy and the substance to suggest the novel’s thematic undercurrents. Y.R. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine [Published: JULY 2010]