Philip Roth’s acclaimed novel becomes a great HBO miniseries from the creators of The Wire.
Its June 1940, and the Levins are a nuclear family ready for the Atomic Age.
This Depression has knocked prices down!
Illustration by Jennifer Dionisio for EW
Herman tells the kids.
Nothing makes an American prouder than knowing its the right time to buy real estate.
Right now theyre in a Jewish neighborhood on Summit Avenue.
Michele K. Short/HBO
some beery anti-Semite yells as the Levins drive by.
Newsreels proclaim Hitlers war machine is on the march through Europe.
Whats a fascist bastard'?
Philip asks one night, and the difficult parental conversations are just beginning.
Doesnt history promise brighter tomorrows?
World War II will start and end before Sandy hits draft age.
Couldnt Herman and Bess prosper into postwar suburbanites?
In the astounding six-episode miniseriesThe Plot Against Americabased on Philip Roths 2004 novel history takes a hard right turn.
Roosevelt will mop the floor with him, dismisses Herman.
The book unfolded as an alternate memoir, narrated by grown-up Philip, the family still called Roth.
Other characters wander far afield.
Evelyn falls under the charismatic spell of Rabbi Lionel Bengelsdorf (John Turturro).
Hes an aristocratic Jewish cowboy, with a South Carolina drawl and a horse he rides around suburban Jersey.
The program evolves into outright resettlement, sending Jewish families to distant locales like Kentucky.
Ryders finger-in-an-electric-socket quiver turns insidiously poignant, as Evelyn finds herself smiling at soirees with historys most infamous Jew-haters.
The Plot Against Americabuilds its vision of oppression gradually.
Summit Avenue empties of children.
Swastikas deface Jewish graves.
The police nod knowingly at violent counter-protesters, shades of Hong Kong.
I swear you might see the adults hair starting to go gray.
Dont expect a political fable built on pleasing-to-all-audiences vagueness.
Canada is a refuge; Kentucky is death.
Yet this is more than outraged polemic.
A son sees his father clearly for the first time.
A mother comforts a lost child.
Parents struggle with adversity they never want their kids to understand.
Their love is the real America, and no shole president will ever take that from us.A
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