The Human Stain

This article is about the novel. For the movie, see The Human Stain (film). For the Cornerstone album, see Human Stain (album).

The Human Stain
First edition cover
Author(s)	Philip Roth
Cover artist	Michaela Sullivan
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Novel
Publisher	Houghton Mifflin
Publication date	May 2000
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	352 pp
ISBN	0-618-05945-8
OCLC Number	43109968
Dewey Decimal	813/.54 21
LC Classification	PS3568.O855 H8 2000

The Human Stain (2000) is a novel by Philip Roth. It is set in late 1990s rural New England. Its first person narrator is 65-year-old author Nathan Zuckerman, a character in previous Roth novels, including American Pastoral (1997) and I Married a Communist (1998); these two books form a loose trilogy with The Human Stain.^[1] Zuckerman acts largely as an observer rather than the protagonist of the novel.

Salon.com critic Charles Taylor argues that Roth had to have been at least partly inspired by the case of Anatole Broyard, a literary critic who, like the protagonist of The Human Stain, was a man identified as Creole who spent his entire professional life more-or-less as white.^[1] Roth states there is no connection, as he did not know Broyard had any black ancestry until an article published months after he had started writing his novel.^[2]

The Human Stain was a national bestseller; it was adapted as a film by the same name, released in 2003 and starring Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, and Gary Sinise.

Synopsis

The Human Stain is set in the 1990s United States, during fierce culture wars, political correctness and the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal. The story is told by Nathan Zuckerman, a writer who lives a secluded life where Coleman Silk is his neighbor. Silk is a classics professor and dean of faculty at Athena College, a fictional institution in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. At 71, Silk is unjustly accused of racism by two black students, because of referring to them as "spooks", since they had never shown up in his seminar: "Do they exist or are they spooks?" Having never seen the students, Silk did not know they were black when he made the comment. The uproar eventually leads to Silk's resignation and soon after, to the death of his wife Iris. Silk starts an affair with one of the school's janitors, Faunia Farley, a 34-year-old woman married to an abusive Vietnam veteran. Through flashbacks, it is revealed that Coleman Silk is a mixed-race man who had been presenting himself as Jewish.

Awards

Winner

• New York Times "Editors' Choice" (2000)^[3]
• Koret Jewish Book Award (2000)^[4]
• Chicago Tribune Editor's Pick (2000)^[4]
• WH Smith Literary Award (2001)^[4]
• National Jewish Book Award (2001)^[4]
• PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction (2001)^[5]
• Prix Médicis étranger; Meilleur livre de l'année 2002

Finalist

• Los Angeles Times Book Prize for fiction (2000).^[6]
• L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award (2001)^[4]

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Taylor, Charles (April 24, 2000). "Life and life only". Salon.com. http://archive.salon.com/books/feature/2000/04/24/roth/index.html. 
2. ^ Philip Roth interview at bloomberg.com
3. ^ NY Times' Editors' Choices of 2000
4. ^ ^{a b c d e} "The Human Stain: Awards". Houghton Mifflin. http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/catalog/titledetail.cfm?textType=awards&titleNumber=682684. Retrieved 2008-03-28. 
5. ^ PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: Winners 1996–2006
6. ^ LA Times book awards (press release)

External links

• The Human Stain at Random House's Reading Group Center page
• The Human Stain at Houghton Mifflin - list of awards