"In American literature today, there's Philip Roth, and then there's everybody else."
–Chicago Tribune "By turns unnerving, hilarious, and sad.... It is a book that shows how the public zeitgeist can shape, even destroy, an individual's life.... Not only a philosophic bookend to
American Pastoral but a large and stirring book as well."
–Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times "Philip Roth's
The Human Stain is the best novel he has written–not to devalue the past. Here, everything the writer has learnt and experienced within that indefinable form we call the novel, the impact of society on himself and the people around him, world contemporary mores, beliefs, prejudices, have come to full realization."
–Nadine Gordimer, The Times Literary Supplement (International Book of the Year Selection) "A master novelist's haunting parable about our troubled modern moment."
–The Wall Street Journal