Book #28: Everyman

Title: Everyman


Author: Philip Roth


Everyman has an important quality that's hard to find in a book: it's short, but also very well-written and thought-provoking. There are plenty of short books out there (The Five People You Meet in Heaven comes to mind) but I rarely think of them as good literature. Maybe I'm totally off-base, but I think a novel usually has to be at least 300 pages to get me in the minds of the characters and make me really care about the story.


But not Everyman. I read the entire novel yesterday afternoon. It's 182 pages, with big print and big margins, but it's not dumbed-down in any way. In fact, it reminded me a lot of Roth's 2004 novel, The Plot Against America (a fantastic read, by the way). Except, of course, that it didn't deviate from the actual chronology of American history and the brothers in Plot Against America are young boys while the brothers in Everyman are old men.


But I'm getting ahead of myself-- Everyman is the story of the death of an ordinary man. We see his death from the point of view of his children, and also see his frame of mind in the months and weeks leading up to his demise. It's a quick, compact book, but it makes an impact. I definitely recommend it.


--originally published 5/15/06