SOURCE: Morrison, Blake. “Talking without Tears.” Times Literary Supplement, no. 5155 (18 January 2002): 41.

In the following review, Morrison assesses Shop Talk as an insightful, interesting collection that reveals much about the ten authors that Roth “interviews” in the book.

Writers, Philip Roth claims, “divide like the rest of mankind into two categories: those who listen to you and those who don't”. His own fiction is famous for its manic talkers; large chunks of his recent novels take the form of monologues and draw us in so deeply that we forget the speech marks. A fiction like this, with protagonists who are desperate to unburden themselves, seems to be interested only in getting heard. Yet its author must have listened, if only to the voices inside him. Roth is thought of as an egomaniacal writer because of all those alter egos—there have now been eight Nathan Zuckerman books, three David...