You can’t get a good bagel in Philip Roth’s hometown. At least not in the radius of The Robert Treat Hotel, Newark, where I am staying. I try two days in a row. Google Maps directs me to a bagel shop in Harrison, New Jersey, thirty minutes away. Someone posting on the Reddit thread r/Newark says, “Take a train for an hour.” I end up at Whole Foods, contemplating the bakery case with growing despair. Finally, I give up.
I am in town for Philip Roth Unbound, a three-day festival put on by the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) on the occasion of what would have been Roth’s 90th birthday. Roth, one of the last titans of a certain type of mid-century literature, died in 2018 at age 85. The weekend promises panels and performances, a bus tour, a library tour, a marathon reading, and a play, featuring participation by literary stars and actors and friends of the late author. The roster impresses: Eric Bogosian, Tony Shalhoub, Sam Waterston, Ayad Akhtar, Susan Choi, Ottessa Moshfegh, Gary Shteyngart, Matthew Broderick, Peter Riegert, Lisa Halliday, Morgan Spector, John Turturro, and many more.
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