n   Israel didn’t exist yet, six million European Jews hadn’t yet ceased to exist, and the local relevance of distant Palestine (under British mandate since the 1918 dissolution by the victorious Allies of the last far-flung provinces of the defunct Ottoman Empire) was a mystery to me…I pledged allegiance to the flag of our homeland every morning at school. I sang of its marvels with my classmates at assembly programs. I eagerly observed its national holidays, and without giving second thought to my affinity for Fourth of July fireworks or the Thanksgiving turkey or the Decoration Day double-header. Our Homeland was America.
Then the Republicans nominated Lindbergh and everything changed.n

The three most important things in real estate may be location, location, and location, but when it comes to book reviewing, an argument can certainly be made that the three most important things are timing, timing and timing. A review of this book written in 2004, when the book was published, would have been a lot different from a review written in May, 2017, when Philip Roth’s frightening description of the arrival of fascism in the USA seems to be coming to fruition before our eyes.


Philip Roth - image from Salon.com

Since the election of one Donald J Trump, there has been a booming business in books about fascism, with a particular interest in what it might look like here in the USA. There are plenty out there that deal with post apocalypse landscapes, and there is certainly the possibility that those might offer a glimpse into our future. But until Swamp Thing opts to launch, there are somewhat lesser scenarios to be considered. Orwell’s 1984 saw a huge boost in sales after the election. Sinclair Lewis’s ironically titled satire, It Can’t Happen Here, also found a new generation of readers. A more recent addition to the group is Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America. This 2004 tale has a lot of creepy resonance with extant conditions in the USA of 2017. Substitute an Islamic family today for the Jewish one in Roth’s alt-world to make it really vibrate.


John Turturro as Rabbi Lionel Bengelsdorf - image from IMDB

Roth was inspired to write the book when he read in Arthur Schlesinger’s autobiography that the more lunatic fringe of the Republican Party had wanted Lindbergh to run. The Plot Against America is an alternate reality scenario in which the GOP does indeed nominate the wildly popular Charles Lindbergh to run against FDR in Roosevelt’s 1940 attempt to gain a third term. Flogging a simplistic isolationist policy (Vote for Lindbergh or Vote for War), Lucky Lindy is elected. [One could argue that Hilary was running for Obama’s third term, so there is a bit of match-up there. And you can’t get much more isolationist than promising to build a wall, so a larger matchup in that.]

As with the real Lindbergh, the fictional one has a soft spot for the new regime in Germany. [See Trumpian affection for Putin] President Lindbergh does all he can to back the USA away from involvement in the European War, refusing to provide aid to Britain in its existential struggle. [See Trump withdrawing Republican support for protecting Ukrainian independence in return for help with getting elected] Lindy promotes the America First slogan as part of his isolationist inclinations. [Swamp Thing, tone deaf to the fascistic DNA of the expression, repurposed it to a less focused general feel-good chant, encompassing, ironically, military expansion and intervention, and a rash of trade policies.] Lindbergh even sees that laws are passed to encourage non-Christians to relocate from their urban concentrations to locations where they would again be in decided minorities. [We’re not there yet. But give it time. Trump is still trying to get past the courts to install a Muslim ban. But the notion of setting up camps is definitely on his mind.] This is not a wonderful thing for the Roth family of Newark, living in a largely Jewish community.


Azhy Robertson as young Philip Levin (renamed from the Roths)

Our narrator is a fictionalized young Philip, commenting on the goings on from a family perspective. How do the changes affect his father, his friends, his relations, his brother, Sandy, his aunt, Evelyn, neighbors and others? Dad is a die-hard American patriot, who happens to be Jewish. (See the introductory quote at top) He insists that the madness of the new regime is a passing thing, and that the more sober leaders of state will rein in the new demagogic leader. [I expect there are many who believed that DJT would be calmly managed by the more establishment sorts in Washington, as there were many in Germany who believed young Adolph might be managed. How’s that workin’ out for ya?]

One thing Roth’s view of the 1940s has that we do not is a central media voice calling out the beast. Walter Winchell is the spoil to Lindy’s autocracy. While there are many voices rising up against Trump in the media, no one has gained the sort of center-stage of opposition that Winchell does here. [Trump tries his best to lump them all together as Fake Media, and they, particularly the Washington Post and NY Times are having a field day exposing DJT’s innumerable screwups and crimes. Well, they used to, anyway. These days (2024) they are both more interested in normalizing outrageous behavior, staying in the both-siderism lane, while alway seeming to find in innocuous news bits omens of a Biden demise. ]

People talk about the possibility of leaving the country for Canada. [Ok, show of hands. How many have given at least some thought to the possible appeal of our great northern neighbor, particularly residents of possible nuke-strike targets, like, say NYC, LA, San Diego, Honolulu? Ok, not so many as I expected, but still a fair number. Brings back warm memories of being subject to the draft during those good old Viet Nam War days.] Some in the story manage to get out.

Roth the author uses the Roth family as his window into various aspects of the national tip rightward. A young relation leaves for Canada, not to flee, but to join up and fight Hitler, to the delight of the Jewish community. Mom’s sister becomes involved with a power-hungry rabbi, a sort of megachurch media-savvy cleric, who aligns with Lindy and allows himself to be used as a shield for the dictator against claims of anti-Semitism. This is, as one might expect, not received warmly in the Roth household. Philip’s older brother, Sandy, is selected by the notorious aunt to participate in a program that places urban (Jewish) youth in distant (Kentucky) farms to give them more of a feel for real America. This was likely inspired by the Nazi Landjahr program in which teens were brought to country camps for a bracing experience of the outdoors, and heavy doses of propaganda. Our friends in Mao’s China did something similar, forcing intellectuals to work on farms as a way of encouraging them to become closer to manual laborers. Sandy comes back tanned and muscled and is made into a poster boy for the program, again, to the family’s dismay. [Maybe the Donald’s version will send kids to R/E developers to learn how to stiff contractors and refuse to house minorities?] We also see many of the elements of fascism that have graced the world’s past; people being kicked out of their jobs for being Jewish; access to services like hotels being denied for the same reason; mindless adoration of the vaunted leader [see any Trump rally, or persistent support from his base in the face of relentless exposure of his traitorous dealings with Russia, and incredibly dishonest dealings with pretty much everyone.] At least Lindbergh had done something worthwhile in his pre-presidential life.

n It is easier to comprehend the election of an imaginary President like Charles Lindbergh than an actual President like Donald Trump. Lindbergh, despite his Nazi sympathies and racist proclivities, was a great aviation hero who had displayed tremendous physical courage and aeronautical genius in crossing the Atlantic in 1927. He had character and he had substance and, along with Henry Ford, was, worldwide, the most famous American of his day. Trump is just a con artist. The relevant book about Trump’s American forebear is Herman Melville’s ‘The Confidence-Man,’ the darkly pessimistic, daringly inventive novel—Melville’s last—that could just as well have been called ‘The Art of the Scam.’ ” - Philip Roth from the New Yorker article

But back to the story itself. It is a novel and if we are not engaged, all the parallels in the world will not matter. So, will it grab you and hold on? Would I tell you it did if it did not? Ok, answering a question with a question. Who does that? Who doesn’t? Fine, whatever. Young Phil is an appealing sort, although not without his self-serving, even criminal flaws, indulging as he does in some decidedly reprehensible behavior. Despite Phil’s shortcomings, Sandy’s cooptation, and Evelyn’s collaboration, the family is shown as decent people, real, relatable, struggling to cope with the creeping horrors of fascism on top of the usual struggles of working class people. Another great strength of the novel is the rich portrait Roth paints of the community in Newark in which the family lives, the neighborhood people, merchants, and plenty of colorful characters. A powerful central image of the story was Phil’s stamp collection, an example of a pure appreciation of something beautiful, that is subjected in his dreams to unspeakable treatment.

My only gripe with the book is that I found the wind-down at the end disappointing, as if, having accomplished what he had set out to do, show what fascism might look like here in the USA and how a Jewish family in America might be affected, there was no need to spend excess energy on plot. But then, he did accomplish what he set out to do, so I guess that counts as a quibble.

Bottom line is that The Plot Against America is a very engaging novel for its characters and plot. But the political resonance with America today gives it a particular zing. And if you still think it can’t happen here, consider that the current president of the USA has systematically fired the US Attorney who was looking into his business dealings, the Acting Attorney General who delivered to him damning intel about his National Security Advisor, and the head of the FBI, the man in charge of investigating DJT’s involvement with Russian hacking of the 2016 presidential election. At some point he will probably fire Robert Mueller, special counsel newly appointed to take over the Russia-gate investigation from former FBI head Comey. And who knows how many more heads will roll before it is all done? Oh, year, and then there was that small matter of directing an insurrection. If you think it can’t happen here, consider the very real question of whether there is any action he can take that will force GOP members of the House of Representatives to vote to impeach Trump. NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman, for one, believes that such a line does not exist, that today’s GOP members have grown so calloused in their partisanship, in their preference for party over country, that they will go along with whatever DJT wants, whatever the cost to our democratic institutions and values. Of course, even when Trump was finally impeached Republican Senators refused to face up to reality and convict. The fascists in Roth’s tale are more ethnically-driven than today’s version, who worship at the altar of business, see tax cuts as a form of Eucharist, and use ethnic hatred and fear of the other as a cynical tool to rev up support for their medieval inclinations. It bloody well can happen here, and it will take national effort and involvement by the American people to keep Philip Roth’s dark vision from becoming reality. Sadly, it has already part-way arrived.

Review first posted – 5/19/17

Published - 10/5/2004

The HBO series was released 3/16/20

5/23/2018 - Philip Roth passed away today, at 85. Here is his obit in the New York Times

=============================EXTRA STUFF

Roth on “Has it Happened Here?” in a January 2017 article in The New Yorker - Philip Roth E-Mails on Trump - by Judith Thurman

Roth on how his love of American literature and America shaped him as a writer - I Have Fallen in Love with American Names

How does Donald Trump stack up against American literature’s fictional dictators? Pretty well, actually.
– By Carlos Lozada

First It’s the Muslims: An Evolution to Dictatorship  – by David Crane

The Bund was a German organization in America that supported Hitler. They staged a huge rally in Madison Square Garden and ran Nazi youth camps that were like the LandJahr program being run in Germany

Here is wiki on Landjahr – it is in German but Google translates it nicely to English

Madeline Albright’s book, Fascism: A Warning, is definitely worth a look

-----October 15, 2018 - A nice short video that puts the current danger into historical context - If You’re Not Scared About Fascism in the U.S., You Should Be

-----February 24, 2019 - NY Times - Putin’s One Weapon: The ‘Intelligence State’ - by John Sipher - a former CIA station chief points out the long history of political interference in the West by Moscow

Every time I read a Roth novel I think: here is the best writer working today. There was so much richness in this story, such assurance, such maturity. So much meaning is packed into the language of this novel--language that superficially resembles straightforward story-telling and is so much more. I feel so taken care of as a reader. The story begins when the protagonist is in third grade and somehow Roth captures all the vulnerability and smartness of this little boy without ever letting go of the assured authorial voice that guides the story forward. No present-tense antics. No trying to write the way an 8 year old might talk in Fiction Land. Just lovely, lovely prose, an unfolding of a story that captivated me with its imagination and with its humanity. Thank you Mr. Roth.

I don't usually do this, but I'm halfway through this book and I want to write a review of my progress so far. For a couple of reasons:
1. The thought has crossed my mind a couple times in the first 200 pages to put the book down. If I don't finish it, I'll probably never write a full review.
2. As I near the midsection of the book, it becomes clearer that things might be about to turn upside down. If so, by the time I finish it I probably will have erased from memory everything I'm thinking about this book now.

Anyway, this book is nothing like I thought it would be. With the title of The Plot Against America and a giant swastika on the cover, I expected it to be some sort of post-apocalyptic political thriller. Especially after just finishing, The Handmaid's Tale, I had high hopes. Well, it turns out to not be so much about Charles Lindbergh's fascist takeover of the USA. Instead it's a [fabricated:] autobiography of Philip Roth, then a 9-year-old Jewish boy growing up in Newark, set in an America where Republican Lindbergh defeated FDR in the 1940 election. Lindbergh is an anti-semite who, instead of entering World War II, signs a Memorandum of Understanding with Hitler's Germany--which would lead the reader to believe something ominous is in the works. But for 200 pages, it's just a droll account of Roth's childhood. The most excitement so far is Roth's older cousin who joins up with the Canadian military only to lose a leg fighting in France. One sinister thing the Lindbergh administration has done is introduce the Office of American Absorption [OAA:], which sounds like it belongs in the alphabet soup of FDR's New Deal. Though benign on its face, the OAA seeks to assimilate "minority" [i.e., Jewish:] youth into rural American life, thus driving a wedge between them and their parents. Roth's brother Sandy spent a summer in Kentucky with a pro-Lindbergh family and now he's back home in Newark and moody. It's not exactly Hitler Jugend, but it's what passes for drama in this book. That's my report so far. We'll see what the final 200 pages hold.
------------------------------------
Well, I finished the book. I don't really have the time or the inclination to give any more of an in-depth review, so I'll just say this. The rise AND the defeat of a fascist American government happened in all of EIGHT (8) pages. The entire escapade was condensed into a short newsreel blurb. It turns out that Roth is supposed to be one of the greatest living writers of our age, but I didn't see it. This book was a literary cock-tease. The emotional tension built up by the Lindbergh administration's machinations was betrayed by a fizzling, easily forgettable climax.

Scordatevi il Roth trasgressivo, cinico e scanzonato di tanti suoi romanzi. Questa è una storia cupa, drammatica, che di antisemitismo parla e di antisemitismo pare nutrirsi, che conduce il lettore per mano a scoprire il clima d'incertezza e terrore che ogni minoranza vittima di razzismo sperimenta sulla sua pelle giorno per giorno. Intenso. Assolutamente da leggere.

Reread for a bookclub, this book packed more of a whallop than it did in 2004. At that time, during the era of Bush II, it read lighter, but having gotten through one tRump presidency and with the prospect of another looming, it was definitely a more chilling read in 2024. Seen through this lens, the potential of fascism in America is frightening proposition.

Alternative history in which Charles Lindbergh is elected President in 1940, defeating Franklin Roosevelt. Lindbergh travels to Iceland and signs a pact with Hitler, vowing to keep the United States out of World War II. Lindbergh’s administration enacts increasingly restrictive policies against Jewish-Americans, leading to civil unrest. The story centers on a Jewish family living in Newark, New Jersey, and is based on the author’s own family. Protagonist Philip is the younger son of Bess and Herman Roth. His older brother, Sandy, is enrolled in the “Just Folks” program, where he travels to Kentucky to live with a farming family and is introduced to “heartland values.” The plot portrays Philip’s rising confusion and fear over how his family and neighbors are treated due to changes in the country’s political environment.

Those who know WWII history will be aware that Lindbergh was one of the primary spokesmen for the America First Committee, an isolationist movement with anti-Semitic tendencies. In the Postscript, Roth includes the full text of Lindbergh’s (real) 1941 speech in DesMoines, entitled Who Are the War Agitators, which lends credence to the book’s premise. He also includes the history of what actually transpired, citing the key players he has used in his narrative, such as Henry Ford, Burton K. Wheeler, Franklin Roosevelt, Walter Winchell, Fiorello LaGuardia, and Joachim von Ribbentrop. A basic knowledge of WWII history is helpful.

The plot stays with the family narrative for the bulk of the novel, focusing on what happens to Philip and his relatives. Toward the end, Roth relies on summaries of newsreels to tell the larger story. I did not find this part as effective, but it was probably necessary, since the nine-year-old Philip would not have been exposed to worldwide events. This book serves as a warning against electing a leader who marginalizes a segment of society. Recommended to fans of speculative fiction.

The Plot Against America by Philip Roth is a 2004 Houghton Mifflin Harcourt publication.

It goes without saying that Pulitzer prize winner, Phillip Roth, is a prolific writer. While I have appreciated the books of his I have read, they are often very heavy, and I can only take them in small doses. But, I don’t know if I would have tried this one, if it had not been for Professor Snyder recommending it, in his book, ‘On Tyranny’.

I was a little concerned about the ‘alternate’ history format, because for it to make sense, the reader needs to know the real history well enough to understand what does or does not work in the speculative world.

‘Their being Jews issued from their being themselves, as did their being American. It was as it was, the nature of things, as fundamental as having arteries and veins, and they never manifested the slightest desire to change it.”

In this case, a simple basic knowledge of the era is sufficient, but I did find it helpful to know a little more personal history about Charles Lindbergh. Understanding the small nuances of his character gave this book an even more sinister quality.

But, of course, the most chilling aspect of this novel is that Roth might have had accessto a crystal ball, foreseeing what could happen, might happen, and actually did happen.

‘The terror of the unforeseen is what the science of history hides, turning a disaster into an epic’

The sad, honest, truth is, if I had read this book two years ago, I would have viewed it as genius, as eerily believable, as a coming of age tale, or who knows what other feelings I may have expressed about it, but reading it today, in our current political climate, the book takes on an entirely different tone. It no longer feels like clever speculative or alternative fiction, but instead, it feels too realistic, hits too close to home, and basically left me with a feeling of impending doom, turning, tossing, and fretting.

I do urge everyone to read this book, if you haven’t already. If you have, read it again, because I think living through these dark days, the book will make a deeper impression on you.

As to the writing, pacing, and all the usual things we mention in reviews, I don’t think that it’s necessary to delve into all that. It’s Phillip Roth. Enough said.

But, what does bear mentioning is, for me, next to ‘The Human Stain’ this book is the best Roth novel, I have read, to date.
5 stars

A Conspiração Contra a América é um romance que parte de factos históricos reais para o facto histórico alternativo ficcionado. Um Philip Roth com 9-10 anos relata-nos o que poderia ter sido a história da sua família, dos judeus americanos, da América e do Mundo, num cenário em que Charles Lindebergh (o herói da aviação americano conhecido pela suas simpatias nazo-fascistas) derrotou Franklin Roosevelt e foi eleito presidente dos EUA, implementando uma política de proximidade com o nacional socialismo alemão. Seguindo as directivas do Comité "America First", o governo de Lindebergh recusa o envolvimento da América na guerra contra a Alemanha, ao mesmo tempo que favorece políticas de isolacionismo e perseguição dos judeus americanos.

O que achei mais interessante neste romance não foi tanto o que à governação de Lindbergh diz respeito (fica no ar a dúvida se esta decorre das suas reais convicções ou é o resultado de uma coerção conspirativa), mas sobretudo os factores que permitiram a sua ascensão ao poder num contexto democrático, e o apoio que as suas medidas receberam. Tendo escrito este romance em 2004, Philip Roth demonstra bastante clarividência na leitura que faz da sociedade americana, das aspirações, medos e ódios recônditos que levam um povo a seguir, sem coerção aparente, líderes populistas propaladores e executores de ideologias enviesadas. Aliás, sinais que, neste momento, estão presentes não apenas na sociedade americana (onde já deram fruto), mas também na própria Europa.

Sendo por vezes ténue a linha que, neste romance, separa a realidade da ficção, o autor inclui no final do livro um Post-Scriptum com a cronologia verdadeira das figuras histórias intervenientes ou referidas no romance e alguma documentação adicional. A leitura deste Post-Scriptum não é essencial para a compreensão do romance mas, além de nos fornecer bastante informação sobre a história americana nesse período, é útil para a destrinça de onde acaba a realidade e começa a ficção no que respeita à vida e à intervenção daquelas personalidades. Como disse não é obrigatório, mas vale a pena ler.

Poderia dizer que estamos perante um romance que mantém a actualidade, mas sou capaz de ficar mais próxima da realidade se disser que este é hoje mais actual do que quando foi escrito. É um pouco assustador que os povos tão pouco tenham aprendido com a História recente ou que a estejam a esquecer tão rapidamente.

C'è tanto da apprezzare e da amare in questo libro di Roth. I suoi magnifici e imperfetti personaggi; l'atmosfera cupa e tesa di certi straordinari frammenti del libro; lo stoicismo in un certo senso tragico della sua famiglia; la sua perspicacia nel non ritenere la storia come un groviglio di fatti inevitabili ma di precise scelte e momenti. Con "Il complotto contro l'America", Roth insegna che nessun paese, neanche quello più libero a questo mondo, è completamente salvo da disordini istituzionali. Nell'America degli anni '40, in cui il razzismo era ancora vivo e vegeto anche grazie a leggi scritte, gli ebrei erano effettivamente a rischio di pogrom. Solo che Roth non li immagina in forma di deportazioni di massa ma più nelle forme di progressiva marginalizzazione dalla società, al fine di annullarne l'esistenza. E questo mi spinge a riflettere: può succedere veramente?

Quello che impressiona dell'idea di Roth è che tutto quello che lui descrive è estremamente plausibile. Il fatto che non sia accaduto non rende il suo romanzo meno realistico. E allora perchè non premio il libro con 5 stelle piene? Perchè, nel suo sforzo di restituire alla Storia il suo trono, ribalta nuovamente la prospettiva in quelle decine di pagine conclusive, rendendo tutto lo sforzo precedente parzialmente vano e vuoto. Forse Roth non voleva che "Il complotto contro l'America" divenisse un romanzo distopico al 100% (stile "La svastica sul sole"), o forse, inconsciamente, ha ritenuto di dover rassicurare se stesso e il lettore facendo agire gli anticorpi storici che spinsero l'America ad eleggere Roosevelt per un terzo mandato senza precedenti. In un certo senso, il finale del libro tradisce tutto ciò che lo ha anticipato.

In tutto ciò, resta una meravigliosa prosa, in un quadro familiare che ho personalmente trovato indimenticabile. Mi resteranno nel cuore la stoica resistenza di papà Herman, la straordinaria dignità di mamma Bess, l'intuito di Sandy e ovviamente l'innocente e commovente sguardo del piccolo Philip.

An alternative history book which has a very interesting premise. Charles Lindbergh, the "Lone Eagle", was indeed a hero to the American people when he flew the Spirit of St. Louis across the ocean to France, becoming the first aviator to accomplish that feat. In his first person narrative, author Phillip Roth, has Lindbergh running for POTUS against FDR in 1940 and beating him soundly. His platform is isolationism.....keeping the US out of WWII, not aiding Britain, and appeasing Hitler. President Lindbergh is also an anti-Semite which endears him to Hitler even more. The story develops slowly as the US begins to take on a Nazi-like attitude against the Jews and programs are developed which closely resemble some of the "relocation" plans of Germany which ended, of course, in the Holocaust.

Roth tells his tale as an intelligent young boy living in a Jewish section of Newark, NJ who doesn't quite understand what is happening but realizes that something is very wrong. His extended family is torn apart by conflicted loyalties as his parents, strong and proud Jews attempt to educate their children on the path the country is taking.

Much of the information about Lindbergh and certain members of Congress is based on fact which makes the story seem a bit more believable. The only problem I have is that the seven year old Roth of the book is just too mature for a child that age regardless of his intelligence. But that is a minor point in an otherwise excellent read.

Ucronia portami via! Cosa sarebbe successo se, negli States della prima meta' del '900, avesse vinto le elezioni il reazionario, antisemita, eroe dell'aviazione Lindbergh? Il filonazismo di costui che riflessi avrebbe avuto sulle vite degli ebrei americani e in generale sulle vite degli all american boys? Su questo canovaccio Roth tesse la trama fatta di note autobiografiche, di documentazione storica, di tanti (troppi) personaggi della cronaca americana di allora, il tutto retto dalla consueta prosa impeccabile. Il grande buco nero di questo lavoro e', a mio modesto parere, che la tesi della sostanziale refrattarieta' della societa' americana ai fascismi sia del tutto arbitraria e non adeguatamente argomentata. La conferma indiretta viene dai dubbi, piu' o meno consapevoli, che l'autore stesso manifesta lanciandosi in un finale quantomeno frettoloso e francamente inverosimile, frutto piu' che altro di una trovata alla deus ex machina.

My preparedness for the regime change taking place in the United States--with elements of the Electoral College, the Kremlin and the FBI helping to install a failed business promoter who the majority of American voters did not support in the election--ends with The Plot Against America by Philip Roth, an elaborately woven and eerily prognostic alternate history. Published in 2004, the Pulitzer Prize winner supposes that aviator, dinner party anti-Semite and Nazi Party favorite Charles A. Lindbergh wins the Republican Party nomination in 1940. On a platform of "America First" and keeping the U.S.A. out of war, Lindy defies pollsters and denies President Franklin D. Roosevelt a third term. His regime targets a religious minority, in this case, Jews.

The audacious story is the first person account of Philip Roth, who in 1940 really was a seven-year-old postage stamp collector growing up in the Jewish enclave of Weequahic in Newark, New Jersey, where the novel is set. The alternate history Philip has a twelve year old brother named Sandy, a prodigious artist. Their father Herman is a thirty-nine year old insurance agent whose fifty-dollar per week salary pays the bills and little more. Their thirty-six-year-old mother Bess is a tiny woman who manages the household. She shares her husband's ardor for the United States, the Constitution, President Roosevelt, the New Deal and the Democratic Party.

Philip recounts how Charles Lindbergh was once a hero in his neighborhood, following the aviator's historic flight from Long Island to Paris aboard the Spirit of St. Louis in 1927. Eleven years later, Germany's mounting terror campaign against Jews is underway across Europe and Lindbergh accepts a Service Cross of the German Eagle during a visit to Berlin. A stoic celebrity who reaps public sympathy following the mysterious kidnapping and murder of his son in 1932, Lindy strides into a deadlocked Republican National Convention in Philadelphia in 1940. Philip and Sandy are wakened by the exclamation of their mother, father and older cousin Alvin as they listen by radio.

The anger that night was the real roaring forge, the furnace that takes you and twists you like steel. And it didn't subside--not while Lindbergh stood silently at the Philadelphia rostrum and heard himself being cheered once again as the nation's savoir, nor when he gave the speech accepting his party's nomination and with it the mandate to keep America out of the European war. We all waited in terror to hear him repeat to the convention his malicious vilification of the Jews, but that he didn't made no difference to the mood that carried every last family on the block out into the street at nearly five in the morning. Entire families known to me previously only fully dressed in daytime clothing were wearing pajamas and nightdresses under their bathrobes and milling around in their slippers at dawn as if driven from their homes by an earthquake.

In the short term, the Roths' spirits are raised by their national heroes. President Roosevelt welcomes a celebrity opponent in Lindbergh with no political experience who is on record for supporting foreign dictators and disparaging Jews. Bombastic muckracker Walter Winchell minces no words in assailing Lindbergh in his weekly radio broadcast. They join luminaries such as New York mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, United Mine Workers president John L. Lewis and journalist Dorothy Thompson pronouncing Lindbergh as unfit for office. Philip's cousin Alvin, however, predicts that America is going fascist. He departs for Canada to join the fight against Hitler.

Polls two weeks before the election show FDR comfortably ahead in both the popular vote and the Electoral College. Republican officials reportedly grouse at Lindbergh's insistence to steer his own campaign, piloting the Spirit of St. Louis from state to state and offering nil about his potential administration. His platform is simple: Your choice is Lindbergh or war. His campaign gets an assist from Rabbi Lionel Bengelsdorf of Newark's B'nai Moshe temple when he vouches for Lindbergh at a rally in Madison Square Garden. The rabbi's message to gentiles that a vote for Lindy is not a vote for antisemitism spurs a landslide victory for the challenger.

President Lindbergh meets Adolf Hitler in Iceland to sign an "understanding" of non-aggression, as well as with emissaries of Emperor Hirohito in Hawaii. The deals ignite protests in a dozen U.S. cities, but most of the country rejoices at peace. In an attempt to show Philip and Sandy that America has not gone fascist, the Roths undertake a vacation to Washington D.C. Returning to their hotel, the Roths discover that their reservation has been canceled and they've been evicted. Bess is skittish to the point of tipping over into paranoia. Her husband is unable to keep his antipathy for the new president quiet, drawing remarks of "loudmouth Jew" from two tourists at the Lincoln Memorial.

But my father could see nothing. "You think you'd hear that here if Roosevelt was president? People wouldn't dare, they wouldn't dream, in Roosevelt's day ...," my father said. "But now that our great ally is Adolf Hitler, now that the best friend of the president of the United States is Adolf Hitler--why, now they think they can get away with anything. It's disgraceful. It starts with the White House ..."

Whom was he talking to other than me? My brother was trailing after Mr. Taylor, asking about the mural, and my mother was trying to prevent herself from saying or doing anything, struggling against the very emotions that had overpowered her earlier in the car--and back then without anything like this much justification.

"Read that,"my father said, alluding to the tablet bearing the Gettysburg Address. "Just read it. 'All men are created equal.'"

While the president praises Hitler as the world's safeguard against the spread of Communism and Germany pushes the Russians east, the Lindbergh administration hits close to home for the Roths by forming the Office of American Absorption and the Just Folks campaign, a "mentoring" program for select Jewish boys aged twelve to eighteen offering eight weeks with a sponsor family to learn farming. Bess' younger sister Evelyn, secretary and mistress to Rabbi Bengelsdorf, helps Sandy qualify for the program, which his father sees through as a fifth column intended to set Jewish boys against their elders and fracture the community.

Alvin loses his left leg below the knee in battle and returns to Newark. Philip assists his cousin with his bandaged stump and tries to keep his brother Sandy's admiration for Lindbergh a secret from his cousin, who feels like a chump for going off to fight Hitler for the benefit of Philip's father. He learns to walk again using a prosthetic and takes a job at a grocer owned by another uncle, but when an FBI agent shows up asking questions about Alvin, his uncle buckles under pressure and fires his nephew, who disappears to work in a numbers-running racket. When Sandy is invited to the White House by his Aunt Evelyn, his mother and father refuse, devastating Philip's brother.

Shepsie Tirschwell, a projectionist at the Newsreel Theater, sees what's going on in current events and tells Herman that he's moving his family to Montreal. Bess takes a seasonal job at a department store and opens a savings account in Canada in case they too need to leave in a hurry. Her husband refuses to be driven from his country, offering that it is the fascists who should get out. In May 1942, his employer complies with Homestead 42, an initiative by the OAA to thin ethnic minorities from the cities and resettle them in rural areas, purportedly to homogenize the nation. His decision to quit his job turns out to be prescient, while his refusal to leave for Canada is perilous. Bess is livid.

"And just where do they get the gall to do this to people?" my mother asked. "I am dumbfounded, Herman. Our families are here. Our lifelong friends are here. The children's friends are here. We have lived in peace and harmony here all of our lives. We are only a block from the best elementary school in Newark. We are a block from the best high school in New Jersey. Our boys have been raised among Jews. They go to school with other Jewish children. There is no friction with the other children. There is no name-calling. There are no fights. They have never had to feel left out and lonely the way I did as a child. I cannot believe the company is doing this to you. The way you have worked for these people, the hours that you put in, the effort--and this," she said angrily, "is the reward."

Like many of Philip Roth's books, The Plot Against America has a clunky title that indicates non-fiction or a symposium, anything but a compelling novel. And before this year, it might not have been. It seems as if half the book is a riff on Roth's boyhood in Newark--his family relations, his odd friendships, his search for his identity. The autobiographical detail grows self-indulgent and my eyes even started to glaze over paragraphs wandering away from President Lindbergh or his destructive impact on the Roths. The author favors marathon sentences and can spend two paragraphs describing nuns, which does not lend itself to a tense dystopian read.

The marvel of the novel is how seamlessly it blends historical fact and devastating fantasy, as well as how accurately it predicts a regime change in the United States. Given his era and his military bent, Lindbergh is stoic where our current president is emotionally unstable, but Lindy is as great a celebrity, cruising through his first election campaign (against a heavily favored Democrat) by appealing to the country's best intentions as well as its base hatreds, against politicians, the media and an ethnic minority. The fear Lindbergh's statements and policies strike in Jews is analogous to that felt by immigrants in our country today and laid out for all its repulsive fascism by Roth.

If there was a novel that utilizes fantasy elements to address the very real fear and hatred being stoked right now, and why none of us are going to like where "America First" leads, The Plot Against America is it. The autobiographical material that serves as a bedrock did grow long in the tooth, but at the same time, the overall effect grounds the novel in reality in a way that science fiction cannot when tackling authoritarian dystopia. Roth's approach is highly effective, personal and chilling the deeper he takes us into Lindbergh's presidency. He includes a handy postscript that offers a true chronology of the historical figures who play a role in this eerie alternate history. The novel offers a warning, which Mayor LaGuardia voices memorably:

"There's a plot afoot all right, and I'll gladly name the forces propelling it--hysteria, ignorance, malice, stupidity, hatred, and fear. What a repugnant spectacle our country has become! Falsehood, cruelty, and madness everywhere, and brute force in the wings waiting to finish us off. Now we read in the Chicago Tribune that all these years clever Jewish bakers have been using the blood of the kidnapped Lindbergh child for making Passover matzohs in Poland--a story as nutty today as when it was first concocted by anti-Semitic maniacs five hundred years ago. How it must please the Führer to be poisoning our country with this sinister nonsense. Jewish interests. Jewish elements. Jewish usurers. Jewish retaliation. Jewish conspiracies. A Jewish war against the world. To have enslaved America with this hocus-pocus! To have captured the mind of the world's greatest nation without uttering a single word of truth! Oh, the pleasure we must be affording the most malevolent man on earth!"