a book
Sabbath’s Theater
Philip Roth · 1996 · 451 pages
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of American Pastoral delivers his "richest, most rewarding novel" (The New York Times Book Review) about Micky Sabbath, a scandalous hero who embarks on a turbulent journey into his past.
One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years
Once an inventive puppeteer, Sabbath at sixty-four is still defiantly antagonistic and exceedingly libidinous. But after the death of his long-time mistress—an erotic free spirit whose adulterous daring surpassed even his own—Sabbath, bereft and grieving and besieged by the ghosts of those who loved and hated him most, contrives a succession of farcical disasters that take him to the brink of madness and extinction.
One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years
Once an inventive puppeteer, Sabbath at sixty-four is still defiantly antagonistic and exceedingly libidinous. But after the death of his long-time mistress—an erotic free spirit whose adulterous daring surpassed even his own—Sabbath, bereft and grieving and besieged by the ghosts of those who loved and hated him most, contrives a succession of farcical disasters that take him to the brink of madness and extinction.
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John Lithgow
“This is one crazy book, but I just love it. It’s about a reckless, old, out-of-work puppeteer named Mickey Sabbath who gets himself in all kinds of trouble out of sheer libidinous self-destructiveness. Roth wrote it with exuberant abandon, reflecting the character of Sabbath himself.”↗
Hugh Dancy
“The most anarchic, provocative, lewd and brilliant Roth novel. It feels like it’s on fire.”↗
