Newark, Newark, Newark

Abstract This chapter on Roth’s life growing up in Newark, New Jersey, focuses on the city’s history and colorful personalities, from boxers to gangsters. Longy Zwillman, kingpin bootlegger who discovered Jean Harlow, and Rabbi Joachim Prinz, who will sponsor Roth’s first trip to Israel in 1963 and appear in The Plot Against America, are key figures. Family life and the challenges his father faced as an insurance salesman for Metropolitan Life are crucial elements in understanding Roth’s origins, as well as the protective care of his mother and the adventures of his brother who went off to art school and the Navy. The chapter also analyzes the importance of Newark, especially the Weequahic section, for Roth’s writing and how its reality differed from his often idealized depiction of the city. Sports, movies, girls, and high school, as well as the story of the Jews of Newark, become the center of the chapter, expanded by his early love of reading and trips to the library.