Philip Roth: Novels 1993-1995: Operation Shylock / Sabbath's Theater

The Library of America's definitive edition of Philip Roth's collected works continues with two novels that heralded the beginning of a more than decade-long creative explosion-one remarkable in an older writer and hailed by critics as unparalleled in American literary history. In the diabolically imaginative <i>Operation Shylock</i> (1993) , a character named Philip Roth encounters a look-alike who claims Roth's identity and who tours Israel promoting a bizarre reverse exodus of the Jews-proselytizing the &quot;real&quot; Roth is intent on stopping, even if it means impersonating his impersonator. <br> &quot;This splendidly wicked book&quot; is how the critic Frank Kermode described <i>Sabbath's Theater </i>(1995) , a comic masterpiece of epic proportions whose gargantuan hero, Mickey Sabbath, grieving the loss of his unsurpassable mistress, embarks on a turbulent journey into his past besieged by the ghosts of those who loved and hated him most.