View the 92nd Y On-Demand program that discusses the life and towering ambition of Philip Roth — and Zipperstein’s new landmark biography, Philip Roth: Stung By Life. Steven J. Zipperstein’s new biography of Philip Roth is “a work of literature itself”.

Tracing Roth’s life from his childhood in Newark, New Jersey, to his days rubbing shoulders with the Kennedys and engaging in a spate of famous and infamous romances, Zipperstein explores the unprecedented range of Roth’s work — from “Goodbye, Columbus” and Portnoy’s Complaint to the Pulitzer Prize-winning American Pastoral and The Plot Against America.