My Life As a Man
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My Life As a Man (1974) is American writer Philip Roth's seventh novel. The novel is split into two sections: the first, "Useful Fictions," consists of two short stories about a character named Nathan Zuckerman (although he shares a name with the character that would inhabit many of Roth's later novels, details about this Zuckerman's life demonstrate that this is not the same character). The second part of the novel, "My True Story," takes the form of a first-person memoir by Peter Tarnopol, a Jewish writer who authored the two stories in the first section.
My Life As a Man is the first of Roth's work that deals with the idea of the connection between a writer's life and his work, a theme that Roth would intently focus on in many subsequent novels, particularly Operation Shylock. In his autobiography, Roth reveals that much of the fictional Tarnopol's life is based on his own experiences; for example, Roth's destructive marriage to Margaret Martinson is portrayed through Tarnopol's relationship with the character of Maureen.
