My first foray into Roth's novels, and I will be going back and reading others from his long period of productivity.
Summer 1944. Newark, New Jersey. A polio epidemic rages through the Jewish community, and young vibrant teacher Bucky Cantor is caught up in the fear, leaves his charges in the inner city, and escapes to a summer camp for children in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania.
Settings beyond Newark and Camp Indian Hill were only mentioned in passing as we learn the fate of Bucky and his newly betrothed are Stroudsburg and Hazleton and Philadelphia PA. The author's descriptions of the summer playground program and activities in the intense heat of the summer, and of the summer camp's pristine and refreshing climate were studies in comparisons of the two locales.
We empathize with Bucky as he comes to feel that he might be responsible for transmitting polio within his circle of charges, and he rails against a Creator that could allow such a devastating disease to rage it's damage on those so young and so innocent.
"Bucky's conception of God...was of an omnipotent being whose nature and purpose was to be adduced not from doubtful biblical evidence but from irrefutable historical proof, gleaned during a lifetime passed on this planet in the middle of the twentieth century. His conception of God was of an omnipotent being who was a union not of three persons in one God-head, as in Christianity, but of two--a sick fuck and an evil genius." ( )

This novel is about young gym teacher struggling to find his place in the world of WWII and the polio epidemic. It's a fairly straightforward story and an easy read. The plot is basically just horrible though--- kids constantly dropping dead and getting crippled. I see that Roth is attempting to focus on Bucky's unusual psychological profile as the cause of his "downfall" and while interesting, the structure of the story makes everything feel anticlimactic and unreal. Definitely not one of Roth's best IMO. ( )

This gut-wrenching story of a polio outbreak in New Jersey during World War II was one of Roth’s final books in a literary treasure chest that contains nearly three dozen tomes. Talk about prolific. Roth wastes no words delving into the themes of community fear and paranoia – issues that are sadly all-to-relatable in this Covid era. It's a depressing but riveting tale that will likely be appreciated by fans of historical fiction. ( )

World War II is not quite over, but in the summer of 1944 there is a war of a different sort on the home front. A deadly polio epidemic is sweeping the playgrounds and streets, attacking randomly, and children, teens and adults are in iron lungs and left paralyzed or dead. No one is quite sure how polio is transmitted, and everyone is frightened:

"We were warned not to use public toilets or public drinking fountains or to swig a drink out of someone else's soda-pop bottle or to get a chill or to play with strangers or to borrow books from the public library or to talk on a public pay phone or to buy food from a street vendor or to eat until we had cleaned our hands thoroughly with soap and water."

Bucky Cantor, a young school teacher, is the playground director for the summer in a Jewish Newark neighborhood. After several of his playground charges get polio, Bucky wonders whether he could be doing more to protect them. He has already been feeling guilty because he was unable to enlist in the army due to his poor eyesight. Now he feels he is failing in the battle on the home front. It gets worse when his girlfriend tries to convince him to give up his job at the inner city playground and join her in the "safe" countryside as a camp counselor.

Particularly having recently experienced the covid epidemic, I found the evocation of the fear and paranoia to be very real and convincing. (I don't know when the polio vaccine became widespread, but I don't think it was available until I was a few years into elementary school. I do know there were at least two kids at my very small school in leg braces from having had polio.) It is also a very good depiction of Bucky's doubts and feelings of helplessness, and self-blame:

"He was struck by how lives diverged and by how powerless each of us is up against the force of circumstances. And where does God figure in this?"

Highly recommended

4 stars

First line: "The first case of polio came early in June, right after Memorial Day, in a poor Italian neighborhood, crosstown from where we lived." ( )

Roth is a great writer, and this book is well worth reading, but very hard - BAD times of polio epidemic in 1944 and the impact on a couple of adults. HARD. ( )