"So You're Superduperman...Big Deal!
Yer Still a Creep!"

Ron Rosenbaum doesn't want to give away all the surprises in his New York Observer cover story on Philip Roth's The Plot Against America, an alternate history in which Lindbergh becomes president and cuts a non-aggression deal with the Axis, but he just can't wait to start talking about it, either. Especially given its potential to reopen the Lindbergh/anti-Semitism issue, which boils down to this question: "At what point in one’s support for a genocidal tyrant does one stop being a 'flawed hero' and become, say, a 'sinister creep exploiting his celebrity on behalf of a mass murderer?'"

It’s got frisson of Sinclair Lewis’ forgotten pre-war classic It Can’t Happen Here. But Roth’s focus is on the Roth family in Newark and how the Lindbergh Presidency affects them, as seen through the eyes of 9-year-old "Philip Roth." One particularly divisive issue in the family is the Lindbergh administration’s program to have Jews in American cities first visit, then get transferred to isolated rural areas, ostensibly to help their "American Absorption." The ultimate goals of the program are troublingly unspoken. The subtly sinister touch of Rothian black-humor genius is in the name he gives the program: "Just Folks."

Just remember: Philip Roth wrote it, so it's not science fiction. And don't even think of comparing it to Radio Free Albemuth.