Letting Go is Roth's first full-length novel, published just
after Goodbye, Columbus, when he was twenty-nine. Set in 1950s
Chicago, New York, and Iowa city, Letting Go presents as brilliant
a fictional portrait as we have of a mid-century America defined by
social and ethical constraints and by moral compulsions
conspicuously different from those of today. Newly discharged from
the Korean War army, reeling from his mother's recent death, freed
from old attachments and hungrily seeking others, Gabe Wallach is
drawn to Paul Herz, a fellow graduate student in literature, and to
Libby, Paul's moody, intense wife. Gabe's desire to be connected to
the ordered andquot; world of feelingandquot; that he finds in
books is first tested vicariously by the anarchy of the Herzes'
struggles with responsible adulthood and then by his own eager love
affairs. Driven by the desire to live seriously and act generously,
Gabe meets an impassable test in the person of Martha Reganhart, a
spirited, outspoken, divorced mother of two, a formidable woman
who, according to critic James Atlas, is masterfully portrayed with
andquot; depth and resonance.andquot; The complex liason between
Gabe and Martha and Gabe's moral enthusiasm for the trials of
others are at the heart of this tragically comic work.
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