Revising Rape and Racism in Henry Roth’s MERCY OF A RUDE STREAM

• In Event: Jewish Respectability Politics

Abstract

This paper examines revisions made to Henry Roth’s manuscripts in the preparation of his late-in-life novel, MERCY OF A RUDE STREAM. Roth’s autobiographical second novel, which was published in four separate volumes, received mixed reviews, though the second volume garnered significant attention for its depiction of the sexual relationship between the adolescent protagonist Ira Stigman and his sister (a relationship that likely mirrored a relationship between Roth and his sister). This paper considers the public and critical commentary regarding the novel’s incest against the manuscript’s heretofore largely unexamined depictions of the protagonist’s overt racism and sexual violence. Stigman routinely uses anti-black racial slurs, and his cousin (also autobiographically based on Roth’s actual cousin) is made two years older in order to make their sexual relationship appear less like rape; instead of witnessing a sex scene between an eighteen year old Stigman and a twelve year old girl, the published version changes the character’s age to fourteen (while refraining from making any other revisions to the character or the dynamics of her relationship to Stigman).
What accounts for these revisions to a supposedly autobiographical novel that has otherwise been celebrated for its ostensibly honest depiction of a stigmatized sexual transgression? In this paper, I argue that the supposedly “taboo” element of the sibling incest is overstated, while the revisions reveal that Jewish racism, and Jewish pedophilia, emerge as the truly unspeakable (or un-printable) acts. In framing my close readings within a Jewish respectability politics framework, I suggest that during the mid-1990s, Jewish respectability politics were flexible enough to accommodate Jewish protagonists engaged in supposedly lateral sibling incest, but could not allow for explicit expressions of anti-black racism or pedophilia.

Author

• Eli Bromberg, University of Massachusetts, Amherst