I feel like this book lied to me.

The quotes were so full of praise, the cover design so eye-catching, and having had just finished a book about a communist spy, the title itself drew me in.

I barely managed 80 pages before giving up.

What a crock of shit.

It turns out that Roth allegedly wrote this book as a rebuttal against his ex-wife Claire Bloom’s memoirs, which had shown him in a (surprise, surprise) negative light. In I Married A Communist there are thinly disguised similarities between Bloom and the main female character; both are Jewish actresses and both have a daughter from a previous marriage, for example.

I just couldn’t get into this at all. Life is too short to finish a book that you’re not enjoying.

Philip Roth is, however, a highly acclaimed author. Here he is being interviewed after winning the Man Booker Prize 2011.