I Married a Communist: Philip Roth

The second novel of Roth’s eloquent American trilogy, set in the tempestuous McCarthy era - a brilliant successor to American Pastoral

I Married a Communist charts the rise and fall of Ira Ringold, an American roughneck who begins life as a ditchdigger in 1930s New Jersey, becoming a big-time radio hotshot in the 1940s. In his heyday as a star - and as a zealous, bullying supporter of `progressive` political causes - Ira marries Hollywood`s beloved leading lady, Eve Frame. Their glamorous honeymoon is short-lived, however, and it is the publication of Eve`s scandalous bestselling expose that identifies Ira as `an American taking his orders from Moscow`.

In this story of cruelty, betrayal, and savage revenge, anti-Communist fever pollutes national politics and infects the relationships of ordinary Americans; friends become deadly enemies, parents and children tragically estranged, lovers blacklisted and felled from vertiginous heights.