The life of Ira Ringold, a Communist activist-cum-radio star who was betrayed to the blacklist by his actress wife, is reflected upon by the last two people alive who knew him--his brother Murray, a former English teacher, and Nathan Zuckerman, who grew up idealizing him. The result is a complex and fascinating novel about the nature of human passion, betrayal, and much more.

Ira emerges as a tremendously angry and violent figure who latches on to Communism as a means of civilizing himself. Young Nathan is initially swept along by the purity of Ira's fervor, but ultimately gains perspective as he matures and broadens intellectually while Ira remains mired in a pure belief in Communist doctrine that blinds him to all its faults. Murray tries to act as the voice of reason to shield Ira from his own impusivity and rage. All of this goes on again the backdrop of the Hollywood blacklist and the vicious social mercanaries of the elite. Recommended.

It's amazing that Roth continues to produce such first rate novels. This sad story about the seductions of communism in the 40's and 50's, and the hysterical reactions of the paranoid right, is an excellent introduction to the craziness of the HUAC manipulations of public fears (which has so many applications to todays political scene) while telling a story of how the age impacts the lives of one group caught up in it.
Yet the flaws of the characters are fully developed and so that there is no hint of mere propagandizing.

Roth is a national treasure.

I really liked this book. It is actually my first Philip Roth book. I was drawn to it because I find this period of American history, the 1930s-1950s, fascinating. I'm drawn to the idealism of people like the fictional hero of this book (Iron Rinn) and of real life activists who figure in the book (Paul Robeson). I find labor history during that time extremely interesting. I also find the betrayal and spying and generally insane political atmosphere of the Cold War period horrifying and yet something that we should never forget.

I admired Roth's portrait of Iron Rinn. Although he is an idealist, an obsessive, and an altogether annoying person who incessantly repeats himself and refuses to admit any shortcomings in his Communist ideology, it is easy to see why someone like him would be drawn to Communism. A working-class man with little education who has dealt with anti-Semitism his whole life, Iron Rinn is naturally in sympathy with the working classes and with black Americans. At that time, unfortunately, there seemed to be limited organized ways to aggressively address glaring social inequities.

And while I certainly find it upsetting that people like Ira failed to listen to the stories of what was actually happening in Stalinist Russia, his anger at a society that felt that persecuting "communists" was more pressing an issue than poverty, exploitation, or racism is certainly something the reader can identify with.

So basically this book is a skilled and moving portrait of a flawed, angry, and naive man-a deeply human man- who genuinely wants social justice; of the bitterness and pettiness and hysteria of red-baiting (which cost countless people their jobs and reputations), and one individual's too human frailties that are his downfall.

The story is narrated by a man twenty years Iron Rinn's junior who once worshipped him. The story unfolds as this now middle-aged man, Nathan, talks to Iron Rinn's brother Murray about the late Iron Rinn. Iron Rinn lost everything due to his connections to Communism, and in fact both Murray and Nathan were victims through their connections to him, even though neither was a communist (Nathan flirted with it for awhile but was a teenager).

I enjoyed this aspect of the story, Nathan's recalling of his hero-worship of Iron Rinn, because it's a universal emotion we can all identify with-when we are so young and first begin to pick intellectual and moral heroes in our lives and try to model ourselves after them. And then it is quite upsetting when, as in Nathan's case and in many like these, we find out that our heroes are flawed, and in some cases, we can become disillusioned.

Roth also does a great job lambasting the hypocrisy and the pathetic nature of those who persecuted men like Iron Rinn for political purposes. And at the center of the story, showing the banality that usually accompanies these types of political crucifixions, is the fact that Iron is betrayed by his own wife for purely personal reasons.

(I also really liked Roth's description of Nixon's funeral!)

I enjoyed this story on so many levels; the history lesson about American life and politics and the shrewd insight into family relationships. It is a great read.

Near the end of Philip Roth's underrated wonderful novel "I Married a Communist", a character who is kind of unsatisfied with existence arguments that every action produces a loss. The right sentence, as we all know, is that every action produces a reaction -- but nearly the end of his life, Murray is certain that the so called reaction means losing something. However not Roth doesn't use the whole book to prove it, he certainly agrees with his character.

The narrative that goes back and forth in time depicts the life of Ira Ringold (Murray's brother), a very famous radio star who marries a very famous Hollywood's silent movies star named Eve Frame. It turns out that the "I" in the title of the book is Eve. But it is not out of the sheer patriotism that she declares her husband is a communist. Their story is told by Murray to Nathan Zuckerman, a sort of Roth's alter ego that has been in many of his books.

Alongside with "American Pastoral" and "The Human Stain", the novel is part of a trilogy written by Roth depicting life in North America in the XX Century. But different from the other two books, in "I Married A Communist", Zuckerman is much more active. This time round he used to be friend with the main character in the time when the events happened. Therefore, more than being only a listener or a narrator, the he is a character of Ira's story -- as told also by Murray.

When Zuckerman was a young boy, Murray used to be his English teacher and he met Ira who was already a famous radio star and married. In this sense, we can have two different points of views of Ira's rise and fall -- albeit both are biased and both men loved Ira a lot. The brother tells the inside story; while Zuckerman is able to tell how the world (specially his family) saw the radio star in different periods.

"I Married a Communist" has a plot better developed than "The Human Stain", albeit not as bombastic as "American Pastoral". But as most Roth's books, the narrative is first among equal, so is the use of language and the character development. The writer is able to inject life in every human being he proposes to create (even in the strange Portnoy, back in the past). Nothing is gratuitous in his books. Roth has a place as one of the best novel writers of the late XX Century. In his microcosms of Newark he is able to paint the world.

Sometimes tragic (Macbeth is quoted many times in the narrative) and often funny, "I Married a Communist" as a portrait of the past bridged to the present. Exploiting the witch hunting of the McCarthyism Roth reminds us that we are always looking for witches to be haunted -- no matter they are real or imaginary. And he reminds us that paranoia can be the first threaten to freedom of expression.

Not his best, but superb description of an era and inside of the characters