The Human Stain by Philip Roth

As they get older, some people "mellow out," becoming less judgmental, more accepting of human weaknesses. Other people, as they get older, seem to turn in the opposite direction, becoming angrier and more discouraged about the human race. Philip Roth seems to be the second sort.

The central characters in this novel all pretend to be something they're not, and they are all wretchedly unhappy. Much of their deception is prompted by the prejudices and expectations of American society, but some is prompted by their weakness in not daring to face life as they really are.

The time is the late 1990s, when America was on "an enormous piety binge," about whether or not President Bill Clinton had sex with Monica Lewinsky. The main character, Coleman Silk, is a respected and successful college professor who is suddenly accused of racism after making a chance remark that is interpreted to be derogatory to African Americans. Ironically, Coleman himself is Negro, having passed for white and Jewish for 50 years. Rather than reveal his secret, Coleman resigns in anger. Then, in a last-of-life effort to live freely, he engages in an affair with a woman half his age, who herself guards a secret. Small town society is not pleased. And so it goes.

Roth is a very, very good writer, so that it is often a delight to read even his diatribes about America, small town gossip, political correctness, the pretensions of academia, etc., etc. But this book is so angry, so discouraged, that it just beats you over the head into a state of depression (or at least it did me).

This is a well-done novel. I believe it won the Pen/Faulkner Award. I enjoyed the reading of it, but I did not enjoy the aftermath of how it made me feel.