Philip Roth turns 80 on March 19, and in his hometown, Newark, bus tours and an exhibition of photographs are among the events planned for the occasion.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times - Philip Roth, who lives in Manhattan and Connecticut, was born and raised in Newark. Planned events include a bus tour and an exhibition of photographs from his past.
The Newark Preservation and Landmarks Committee will offer a $35 bus tour running about an hour called “Philip Roth’s Newark” on the day itself; at noon, two buses will depart from the south entrance to the Newark Museum and travel to places recalled in Mr. Roth’s books. Stops will include Washington Park, the Essex County Courthouse and various spots in the Weequahic neighborhood, where Mr. Roth was born and raised. Readings from his novels about each location will accompany each stop, said Liz Del Tufo, president of the committee.
A stop at Weequahic High School, for instance, is paired with a reading from “Portnoy’s Complaint,” in which the narrator recalls a cheer he used to chant with his cousin and his cousin’s friends at the end of football games: “We play football, we play soccer — And we keep matzos in our locker!”
The committee has been offering the guided bus tours on request since 2003, “mostly for literary people or people who have some history in Weequahic,” Ms. Del Tufo, who lives in Newark, said. On one occasion, in 2009, Mr. Roth, who now lives in Manhattan and Connecticut, was visiting Newark and boarded a bus himself.
Tour participants are also likely to spend time at the Newark Public Library perusing “Philip Roth: An Exhibit of Photos From a Lifetime,” a show of roughly 100 photographs. The exhibition opens March 19 and will run through Aug. 31 in the library’s second-floor atrium.
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