The Plot Against America

Roth's The Plot Against America has such an abrupt, disappointing ending!

I don't know what to say. This is a marvelous, brilliantly written book. I got totally absorbed and could barely put it down for two days. His sense of history is rich and densely detailed, and his writing is marvelous.

But somehow, there was little heart to it. I feel like I should have been sobbing, that this should have been a cathartic read. Somehow, as much as I enjoyed it, I was left cold.

Part of it is that it's about a nine year old boy, but told from a historical point in the future, by an adult, and I never really felt the nine-year-old-ness. He described the vulnerability, fear and confusion, but it didn't hit me. I wasn't pulled in emotionally.

This book, by the way, is an alternate history, where Roosevelt loses his third term election to Lindbergh and the country signs a peace pact with the Nazis...