The Boy from Weequahik: Newark Celebrates Philip Roth - and Vice Versa

The New York Times' Charles McGrath reports on the retirement of author Philip Roth following his 80th birthday and a celebration that was held for him in Newark, NJ, his home town and locale that has served as inspiration and material for his fiction.

Mr. McGrath writes: "The Irish novelist Edna O’Brien recalled her long and complicated friendship with the “scorchingly handsome” Mr. Roth, described his sometimes hermitlike work habits and ended decades of gossip and speculation by declaring that they were never lovers. The New Yorker critic Claudia Roth Pierpont touched on the role of music and of silverware in Mr. Roth’s work and spoke in some detail about the richness and lifelikeness of his female characters. She once complained to him, she recalled, about a female character who seemed too perfect, too snippy. Mr. Roth replied, “You should hear what she says about you.”

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