I Married a Communist by
Philip Roth

Nominated by:

Radio actor Iron Rinn ( born Ira Ringold ) is a big Newark roughneck blighted by a brutal personal secret from which he is perpetually in flight. An idealist Communist, a self-educated ditch-digger turned popular performer, a six- foot six- inch Abe Lincoln look-alike, he emerges from serving in World War II passionately committed to making the world a better place and winds up instead blacklisted and unemployable, his life in ruins. On his way to political catastrophe, he marries the nation`s reigning radio actress and beloved silent film star, the exquisite Eve Frame (born Chava Fromkin). Their marriage evolves from romantic idyll in a tasteful Manhattan townhouse to a dispiriting soap opera of tears and treachery. And, with Eve`s dramatic revelation to the gossip columnist Bryden Grant of her husband`s life of "espionage" for the Soviet Union, the relationship enlarges from private drama into national scandal. Set in the heart of the McCarthy era, the story of Iron Rinn`s denunciation and disgrace is narrated years later by his brother, Murray Ringold, whose former student, the adolescent Nathan Zuckerman, was the radio actor`s adoring protege in the late forties. It is a story of cruelty, humiliation, betrayal, and revenge spilling over into the public arena from their origins in Ira`s turbulent personal life. In Roth`s previous novel- the Pulitzer Prize winner American Pastoral- we heard the terrifying, heartrending story of Swede Levov, a decent American meeting his indecent destiny in an America torn apart in the sixties by the Vietnam War. The novel I Married a Communist continues Roth`s brilliant fictional portrayl of a post-war history in which private needs and public acts are inextricably joined- and in which the consequences are as harrowing for the country as for the Levovs and the Ringolds of Roth`s meticulously resurrected American ruin, Newark, New Jersey.
With his last four books, all published in the 1990s, Philip Roth has won America`s four major literary awards. Patrimony won the 1991 National Book Critics Circle Award, Operation Shylock the 1993 PEN/Faulkner Award, and Sabbath`s Theatre the1995 National Book Award. His most recent novel, American Pastoral, received the1998 Pulitzer Prize in fiction. Both Sabbath's Theater and American Pastoral were nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 1997 and 1999 respectively. I Married a Communist is his twenty-third book.

Here's what the members of the Reading Group based at our Raheny branch library think of I Married a Communist:

The book is a fictional portrayal of the McCarthy era, as seen by the author. It tells the story of the rise and fall of Ira Rinn a zealous left wing American Jew. He married Eva Frame, a well-known actress and celebrity. Both were escaping their pasts, Ira his violent past, Eva her Jewish past. Ira became a famous radio star for his impersonations of Abraham Lincoln in a radio soap opera. While other liberal left-wing sympathisers were being blacklisted Ira was protected until his marriage collapsed and Eve wrote her explosive book I Married a Communist, which she claims was written by friends of hers who were aspiring Republican politicians. For both Ira and Eve it was their destruction. Ira was sacked, had a breakdown, and ended his days selling bags of mineral deposits from the rock dump. Ira's revenge on eve was equally devastating as she ended her days a forgotten alcoholic. There are many levels, characters and sub-plots within the story. The narrator Nathan Zuckerman, was a protégé and admirer of Ira. A chance meeting with Ira's 90-year-old brother Murray, who was also Nathan's teacher, filled in the missing details of Ira's life. They discovered they both suffered because of their association with Ira. Murray was blacklisted, supposedly for his liberal teaching ideas; Nathan failed to get a Fulbright scholarship because of his association with the Ringolds. Ira's communist views were well known - 'dogmatising of the Communist party controlled his thinking.politically gullible'. He was a very flawed character, and yet a hero in this book. The character of Eve was almost without redemption. She was anti-Semitic. She called Murray's wife Doris 'a twisted little Jew'. The author describes Eve as 'someone from whom life had escaped'. Eves' daughter Sylphid, is also a portrayal in a similar light to Eve - she is totally self-consumed, destructive, selfish 23 year old, who bullies and manipulates her mother and hates Ira because he married her mother. It is a story of cruelty, betrayal and revenge, told almost like a soap opera. I became involved with the story, the characters and the politics of the story. It was impossible to put the book down, and like the soap opera, even when you are not watching/reading you are wondering what will happen next. His descriptions of the characters and the events were so well written that you could clearly visualise it. At times it almost read like a Woody Allen film. I found this a hauntingly powerfully told story and I would live to see it win the IMPAC prize.
(Member of Raheny Library Reading Group)

The novel opens in the year 1997. Nathan Zuckerman, an ageing author, semi-retired in his retreat in A New England backwater renews acquaintance with his former High School teacher, Murray Ringold (now 90 years old) at a university summer school. Their meeting triggers off shared memories of the 1940's/50's in which Murray's brother Ira, the Communist of this title, played a significant part. Ira, a redneck, former miner, ex-sergeant in the US army in World War 2 and now a celebrity radio actor is "a great big walking conscience" who wants to redress the wrongs of the world, particularly discrimination against black people and proper conditions for the working class. For him, Communism is the answer and as a party activist he eventually is blacklisted from his radio show in the anti-Communist tidal wave which swept across the US in that period. However the real drama in the novel centres on the disastrous marriage between Ira and Eve Frome, a famous actress of stage and radio. When Eve discovers Ira has been unfaithful she wreaks vengeance in an expose book I married a Communist . Herein, in a way, lies the weakness of the novel as the twists and turns of the attrition between the two protagonists seems unduly dragged out and somehow lacks credibility. That said however, the book is a great read not least because Roth is a consummate phrase-maker - one rather enjoys "the pleasures of spite"- or "the excitement in marriage is fidelity" was not a concept understood by Ira according to his brother. Overall this is an absorbing human drama set against the political landscape of the Communist witch-hunt of that time and which had huge consequences for the main characters. The narrator is Nathan, yet indirect storyteller is Murray, the real hero of the book. Solid, loyal, supportive of his brother at enormous cost himself he is still the teacher and mentor expanding his horizons even at 90 years - for him life isn't over till your dead, a lesson he wants to pass to Nathan whom he perceives to have withdrawn from life. This is a multi-layered book; there is the all-embracing political dimension, then the cultural importance of radio at that time and lastly it gives a picture of East-European Jewish immigrants and their descendants making out in the multi-racial society of the New World.
(Member of Raheny Library Reading Group)

This is by far the best book I have read from the IMPAC list. The fictional characters are so well placed among well-known figures of the "McCarthy era" that the work reads like a good biography. Ira Ringold, the main protagonist is a multi-faceted character perfectly described by the narrator as a "frenzies over-excitable group self". Ira as a young man has committed murder but has escaped detection. An Abraham Lincoln look-alike, he becomes Iron Rinn, a well-known radio actor sympathetic to Communist ideals. He marries popular star of radio and silent screen, Eve Frame. Miss Frame has also reinvented herself and the marriage is not helped by Eve's obsessive devotion to her manipulative daughter Sylphid. The novel is a graphic account of the evils of McCarthyism and the ease with which lives and careers were destroyed by association. It is a story of treachery and revenge. Ira's newly acquired comfortable lifestyle is brought to ruin by Eve's act of betrayal when she publishes a book declaring "I Married a Communist". His act of revenge, equally devastating, is to expose her true identity as Chava Fromkin, daughter of an uneducated Polish Jew, a fact that she strived all her life to hide. The book is brilliantly written. Mr. Roth has the ability to switch the action back and forth in seamless fashion. I felt this work should be the overall winner.
(Member of Raheny Library Reading Group)