The other day I dug out my dog-eared copy of American Pastoral (no exaggerating for emphasis, it’s my college copy), collapsed onto the couch, and cracked open a lemon Spindrift (a budgetary indulgence that now strikes me as more delinquent than cigarettes). My husband glanced over and, without missing a beat, declared:

I love my husband for many reasons. He is measured and gentle. Sharp as a tack. He has adopted my wild mutt as his own. He cares deeply about all the things I couldn’t care less about. And, of course, he has a chin that puts John Travolta’s to shame—my own personal metric of handsomeness.

But my favorite thing about my husband is that he surprises me. A proclamation of a Philip Roth summer? From the man who groans every time I bring another book into the house? At that moment, my lust for him was unmatched. 

Ok, but what is a Philip Roth summer (let’s call it a PRS from here on out because you know how important brevity is to me), exactly? Why would this summer be the one for it? I don’t disagree with my husband’s assessment. In fact, I feel the vibes of a PRS all around me. Honestly, Roth wrote it himself in 2004: 

“How can this be happening in America? How can people like these be in charge of our country? If I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I’d think I was having a hallucination.”—Philip Roth, The Plot Against America

But I want to be intentional about it, about this PRS. Not in a goal-setting way (God forbid), but in the sense of visceral awareness. Awareness of the unrest within and around you. Awareness of the stickiness, the swirl, the way the air and the atmosphere are off. The heaviness of the humidity, sure, but the heaviness of the Stephen Miller of it all as well. 

“That’s how we know we’re alive: we’re wrong. Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But if you can do that—well, lucky you.”—Philip Roth, American Pastoral

Me? I am constantly in a state of emotional and intellectual unrest. It’s part of being a Jew from the East Coast. And that’s another part of a PRS: summertime Jewishness, sticky with humidity and a sense of perpetual displacement. But don’t get me wrong, you don’t have to be Jewish to have a PRS. You just can’t be antisemitic (ideally I wouldn’t have to flag this, but I’m not naive, AND naivete is not a pillar of a PRS). You do, however, need to be okay with how your breath smells after eating raw red onions.

I think based on that unrest, you have to have some kind of awakening that SHOULD fulfill you, but never actually does, instead just opening up more unrest.And then there’s the part where you have an awakening that should fulfill you but doesn’t. It just opens up more unrest. When it comes to this perpetual unrest, you’re either swirling in it or you’re avoiding it. Avoidance is a key pillar of a PRS. 

One avoidance tactic: the crack of a peanut at a baseball game in the dead heat of summer. Keeping score with a No. 2 pencil, smudged by the oils on your fingers. Being quietly infuriated by the people behind you who paid $22 for imported beer and don't understand that baseball is a civilized game.

I have no idea if these scores are legit or even meaningful, but you get the point right?

Another: swimming laps in a heavily chlorinated pool. The swimming itself is not avoidance, each stroke draws you closer to whatever gnaws at you. But the nap that follows, sun-dazed and chemically scented, is a blessedly blank work of art.

It’s not a Don Draper summer but remember when Don dried out and took up swimming at the Y? That feels heavily PRS coded.

Then there’s trouble. Not the kind you seek (that would be an Updike summer), but the kind that finds you. Trouble is essential to a PRS, but it must arrive uninvited. You don’t chase it. You follow your curiosities, and sometimes they lead you somewhere inconvenient. 

“How far back must we go to discover the beginning of trouble?”—Philip Roth, Goodbye, Columbus

Social media has no place in a PRS. I deleted mine shortly after the inauguration and haven't missed it (except for the birthday reminders, I’m sorry if I’ve missed yours) Reading, however, is central. But it only counts as reading if it’s Longform. Reading this substack doesn’t count. Reddit threads also do not count. I will make an exception for a hard copy of a magazine, but Library books are ideal, the squeak of the plastic jacket as you open, the most sonically accurate for a PRS. I suppose a Kindle is fine if you behave yourself. The key is sustained focus. Let the page annoy you. Let it press back.

Room temperature tap water is non-negotiable. You should never be fully cool during a PRS. It’s a shvitzy summer. No central air. A sputtering window unit is acceptable. (Full disclosure: I will not be participating in this part. I like my house to feel like a meat locker.) It has also been said that Roth’s favorite food was soup - of all kinds, cabbage, matzoh ball, au pistou. I find a summer soup a weirdly delightful treat. Soup in the summer is like soft serve in the winter - it’s not orthodox, but the whole point of a PRS is that it’s anything but orthodox.

Especially when it comes to lust. It’s not the kind of lust that blows up your life (again that’s more of an Updike summer kind of thing, but the kind that reframes it. A PRS invites you to see what’s already there with new hunger. Lust, in this case, is not destruction. It’s noticing.

“Many farcical, illogical, incomprehensible transactions are subsumed by the mania of lust.”—Philip Roth, Sabbath’s Theater

So yes, my husband called it and I’m having a full on Philip Roth summer. And if you’re reading this with a sheen of sweat and a gnawing sense of unrest, maybe you are too.

You’ll know it’s happening when something minor like a cracked spine (of your book, hopefully not your back, though that too could be an indicator of a PRS), a cup of warm, Fluoride heavy water straight from the tap, or the smear of graphite on the heel of your hand feels like an omen. And the only thing left to do is pay lots and lots of attention to how you feel and what you see when you free yourself to do so.

Chic Schmaltz La Vie,

LCF

PS. Listen, I know Roth is a polarizing character, but to be clear, this is not about suggesting he is a moral compass, but instead a kind of a weathervane for a certain cultural unrest that feels especially relevant today.