Portnoy's Complaint

‘Opening the first page of any Philip Roth is like hearing the ignition on a boiler roar into life. Passion is what we’re going to get, and plenty of it.’ – The Guardian Framed as a reeling monologue shared with his psychoanalyst, Dr. Spielvogel, Alexander Portnoy – a sexually-obsessed, mother-fixated bachelor – leaves no stone unturned in the frank revelations of his shame and humiliation. Yet in here too is a tale of America, of Jewish identity, of family and belonging, the ‘Complaint’ of the title heralding Portnoy’s eternal war with himself. Judged by many as perhaps the greatest of all American comic novels, Philip Roth’s seething, hysterically funny exploration of the sexual urge remains unsurpassed in its graphic – but oddly moving – fury. Subject to intense scrutiny and sporadic censorship from its initial publication in 1969, Portnoy’s Complaint firmly established Philip Roth as one of America’s titans of literature.