Portnoy's Complaint

  • Legal Separation from Maggie

  • The Last Jew

    Unfinished novella, scattered drafts
    Box 129, Folders 4-5
  • Period: to

    Pre-drafting

    Unfinished works, drafts, short stories and events that lead to Portonoy's development
  • "The survivor syndrome Auschwitz Reverbation" News clipping

    Newspaper clipping from 1945 (The Last Jew)
    - Written over it a date: 5/2/65
    Box 129, Folder 5
  • Portnoy is set

    Portonoy's Complaint is set in 1966
  • Nice Jewish Boy or Masochist Extravaganza

    Unpublished first chapter that becomes part of the first official draft of Portnoy
    Box 155, Folder 3
  • Portrait of the Artist as a Nice Jewish Boy

    • Robert is the narrator, married to Sarah Abbott Mausley
    • Portonoy's family lives upstairs
    • Portonoy's son, Jack, died in the war (sophisticated character)
    • Multifamily house in Newark, NJ
    • P109; Not wanting to go to the temple
    • P129; Mother changing in front of son
    • Final aside about wife, repeated Box 183, Folder 2
  • Period: to

    Drafting process

    Unofficial drafts until "nearly finalized editions" of drafts
  • Esquire: A Jewish Patient Begins His Analysis

    Publication of A Jewish Patient Begins His Analysis in Esquire Magazine
  • Period: to

    Roth and Ann at Martha's Vineyard

    Roth and Ann Mudge rent a house in Martha's Vineyard for the month
  • Partisan Review: Whacking off

    Publication of Whacking off in the Partisan Review, Summer issue
  • Letter to Joe Fox

  • Aside in Portrait of the Artist as a Nice Jewish Boy

    Folder is dated Jan 1967, this feels more like a narration of his process rather than the story itself
    Box 183, Folder 2
  • New American Review: The Jewish Blues

    Publication of The Jewish Blues in the New American Review, September 1967
  • My Son the Patient

    Becomes Whacking off
  • New American Review: Civilization and its Discontents

    Publication of extract titled "Civilization and its Discontents" in the New American Review, 1968
  • Maggie dies

  • Period: to

    Yaddo

    12 days in Yaddo where Roth takes the first drafts of the last two chapters. By the end, he has a "nearly final" draft of the whole work.
  • Joe Fox Announces PC to Random House

    He says that within two weeks, Roth would have his new novel
  • Final Drafts Compiled

  • Period: to

    Final revisions

    Between finalized drafts and publication, includes galleys and trip to London
  • Letter to Epstein

    Roth writes to Epstein about Ted Solotaroff and George Eliott disliking his epigraph idea. Roth and Epstein are the only ones that find it funny
  • Period: to

    Post-publication

  • Esquire drafts back

    Roth asks Esquire magazine for his draft of the Jewish Patient Begins his Analysis