Philip Roth Was A Jerk, But His Advice For Writers Is Dead On

9 writing tips from the man who won more literary awards than any other writer, ever.

Linda Caroll
Inspired Writer

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Philip Roth photo from Amazon

Philip Roth was kind of a jerk.

That’s not new. A lot of writers are jerks.

Charles Dickens was a cruel man with bizarre obsessions. Flannery O’Connor Was A Raging Racist. J.D. Salinger liked little girls. Norman Mailer stabbed his wife in rage.

Writers are just people. Sometimes, people are jerks.

Skill doesn’t turn a jerk into a nice person.

Truth is, if we expected writers to live up to the moral expectations of our time, our bookshelves would be bare.

Let me tell you a story.

It’s short, ugly and true.

In 2002, students at Columbia University were super excited. They were about to meet Roth, the man who’d won more literary awards than any other writer, ever.

He won a Pulitzer. The National Book Award, twice. The PEN/Faulkner, three times. The WH Smith Literary Award. The inaugural Franz Kafka Award. And more. It’s too long a list to include all his awards here.

He won every major American literary award, some multiple times.

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