Books
June, 2000
A Lesser ProfessorPhilip Roth's new novel, The Human Stain (Houghton Mifflin), is set in "the summer when a president's penis was on everyone's mind, and life, in all its shameless impurity, once again confounded America." Though the quote suggests we're in for a playful, satiric ride, Stain is serious stuff. It begins with the downfall of an aging professor at a small New England college who has been something of a campus star. When his innocent classroom comment is misinterpreted as...
