Der kürzlich verstorbene amerikanische Schriftsteller Philip Roth galt als wortkarg und verschlossen. In dieser Dokumentation öffnet er sich erstmals im Gespräch. Ein authentisches und intimes Porträt zeigt ihn in seinem Alltag, bei der Arbeit und bei der Lesung von Ausschnitten seiner Texte. Es entstand im Herbst 2010, unmittelbar vor dem Erscheinen seines Romans „Die Demütigung".

Philip Roth, arguably America’s greatest living novelist, turns 80 on March 19. In 1959, his collection of short stories, Goodbye, Columbus, put him on the map, and 10 years later his hilarious, ribald best-seller, Portnoy’s Complaint, gave rise to the first of many Roth-related controversies in which Judaism, sex, the role of women, and the parent-child relationship would take center stage. In candid interviews, the Pulitzer Prize-winner discusses his distinctly unliterary upbringing in Newark, NJ, his admiration for Saul Bellow and Bernard Malamud, and how Zuckerman may or may not be his alter-ego. Nathan Englander, Mia Farrow, Jonathan Franzen, and Martin Garbus are among those who talk about the man and his writing. Franzen in particular praises Roth for “how brave he must have been to have methodically offended everybody and to have exposed parts of himself no one had ever exposed before.”