PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT(ISBN=9780679756453)

Portnoy's Complaint "n." after Alexander Portnoy (1933- )] A disorder in which strongly-felt ethical and altruistic impulses are perpetually warring with extreme sexual longings, often of a perverse nature. Spielvogel says: 'Acts of exhibitionism, voyeurism, fetishism, auto-eroticism and oral coitus are plentiful; as a consequence of the patient's "morality," however, neither fantasy nor act issues in genuine sexual gratification, but rather in overriding feelings of shame and the dread of retribution, particularly in the form of castration.' (Spielvogel, O. "The Puzzled Penis," "Internationale Zeitschrift fur Psychoanalyse," Vol. XXIV, p. 909.) It is believed by Spielvogel that many of the symptoms can be traced to the bonds obtaining in the mother-child relationship. With a new Afterword by the author for the 25th Anniversary edition.

Philip Roth is the author of twenty-five previous books, including Sabbath's Theater, for which he won the National Book Award, American Pastoral (the Pulitzer Prize), I Married a Communist, The Human Stain and The Dying Animal. Born in 1933, he lives in Connecticut.