Bought for my local reading group

It's 1940. The USA is under growing international pressure to join the Second World War in support of France and Britain. And Franklin Roosevelt has been defeated by a landslide in his bid for a third presidential term by the charismatic, isolationist, Nazi-sympathising aviator Charles Lindbergh. What follows is a growing nightmare for the Roth family in Newark, New Jersey, and for thousands of other Jewish families.

Lots of food for thought for the 'it couldn't happen here' school, and a timely reminder of how tyranny and terror can become established fact almost without anybody noticing. Roth doesn't labour the point but their are plenty of invitations to draw parallels with our own time too - look at how God-fearing, Protestant, Middle-America rails against the domination of the media not by Jews but by 'Liberals'!

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Now out on a ring:

- Iojima <---
- perfect-circle
- AliceF

... and back to me!

Arrived today with what I thought was a cake for our tea. So exciting. My English husband informs me that Kendal Mint Cake is chocolate. Even more exciting!
As for the book, I'm looking forward to it. I love alternative history -- and Philip Roth.

At first I thought it was moving too slowly (I really must stop reading so much fluff!). The pacing was one of the most powerful things about it. Most alternative history places you in an already changed society to experience both the strangeness and the sameness. "The Plot Against America" demonstrates how easy it is for a group or a country to lose its freedoms, how insidious and inexorable the process can be, how even the people most likely to become the victims of the change are led to embrace a philosophy inimical to their interests. The ending was too easy and too pat -- hence the 9 instead of a 10 -- but the ending wasn't really the point.
I agree with SwannOfKennet that there are parallels in our society, but I think today's targets are any group or holders of ideas outside the dominant culture.

arrived today. I have a couple of books on the go at the moment but should start it next week when I'm off work.

Definitely plenty to think about here and parallels to be drawn with today's 'culture of fear'. It was disturbing to see how easily something like this could happen. I felt a little disappointed by the ending, although I couldn't put my finger on why.

Alicef has asked to be skipped so this book will be returning home after the bank holiday. Thanks SwanofKennet for sending it out.

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posted back to SwanOfKennet today.

I should have journalled this when it returned but I didn't. Sorry...

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