Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth

Goodbye, Columbus tells of a summer romance set in New Jersey between uptown girl Brenda Patimkin and librarian Neil Klugman. One glimpse of Brenda smoothing a wedgie from her bathing suit and Neil is lost.

Loved Aunt Gladys.

Neil, also the narrator, lives at home with Aunt Gladys - one of the most entertaining characters in the book. She henpecks him, bemoans her kitchen duties, and scoffs at his romantic ambitions. Her voice is hilarious - and rings stridently from the page with every utterance.

Goodbye, Columbus is a novel of economic mobility, Jewish identity, family relations, and youth’s delight in destruction and willfully waspish words. It’s a fast read.

There are some interesting scenes with a black child in the library: sixty years later, the boy’s defensive reasoning still reflects attitudes today.

This was Roth’s first novel and it won him the US National Book Award for Fiction in 1960.

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