In 1969, Random House Inc., published PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT.
In its first year, over 400,000 copies of the book were sold.
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PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT
by Philip Roth
After recounting the story of why his mother does not eat lobster, Alexander Portnoy analyzes the confession he's making to Dr. Spielvogel, his psychiatrist.
Whew! Have I got grievances! Do I harbor hatreds I didn't even know were there! Is it the process, Doctor, or is it what we call "the material"? All I do is complain, the repugnance seems bottomless, and I'm beginning to wonder if maybe enough isn't enough. I hear myself indulging in the kind of ritualized bellyaching that is just what gives psychoanalytic patients such a bad name with the general public. Could I really have detested this childhood and resented these poor parents of mine to the same degree then as I seem to now, looking backward upon what I was from the vantage point of what I am -- and am not? Is this truth I'm delivering up, or is it just plain kvetching? Or is kvetching for people like me a form of truth? Regardless, my conscience wishes to make it known, before the beefing begins anew, that at the time my boyhood was not this thing I feel so estranged from and resentful of now. Vast as my confusion was, deep as my inner turmoil seems to appear in retrospect, I don't remember that I was one of those kids who went around wishing he lived in another house with other people, whatever my unconscious yearnings may have been in that direction.
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