When She Was Good

By Philip Roth

Categories: Literature & Fiction

Philip Roth's 1967 novel is set in a small Midwestern town and centers on Lucy Nelson, a young woman whose father's drinking has filled her with moral fury. Determined to make the men around her behave, she marries Roy Bassart, an aimless young veteran, and her campaign to reform her husband and her family turns into a portrait of righteousness, anger and self-destruction.

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• Barack Obama: “Some of the great books by Jewish authors like Philip Roth or Saul Bellow, they are steeped with this sense of being an outsider, longing to get in, not sure what you're giving up — what you're willing to give up and what you're not willing to give up.”