SOURCE: Allen, Brooke. “Twilight Triumphs.” New Leader 83, no. 2 (May-June 2000): 30-2.

In the following excerpt, Allen praises Roth's depiction of Coleman Silk in The Human Stain, viewing him as a “powerfully imagined and deeply appealing character.”

That at the age of 68, and with 25 books behind him, Philip Roth still has so much to say and still says it as well as he does in his new novel, The Human Stain, is astonishing. Indeed, it might appear something of a miracle, except that Saul Bellow, who is 84, has just issued Ravelstein, his most engaging work in years. Both books are tales of old age set in an academic milieu; both feature, to a greater or lesser extent, characters based on recently deceased intellectual stars.

Roth is clearly enjoying himself. The Human Stain is as fresh, as angry and as bitterly amused as his early fiction. It vibrates with mockery, disapproval...