Book Description
Radio actor Iron Rinn (born Ira Ringold) is a big Newark
roughneck blighted by a brutal personal secret from which he
is perpetually in flight. An idealistic Communist, a
self-educated ditchdigger turned popular performer, a
six-foot six-inch Abe Lincoln look-alike, he marries the
nation's reigning radio actress and beloved silent-film star,
the exquisite Eve Frame (born Chava Fromkin). Their marriage
evolves from a glamorous, romantic idyll into a dispiriting
soap opera of tears and treachery. And with Eve's dramatic
revelation to the gossip columnist Bryden Grant of her
husband's life of "espionage" for the Soviet Union,
the relationship enlarges from private drama into national
scandal.
Set in the heart of the McCarthy era, the story of Iron
Rinn's denunciation and disgrace brings to harrowing life the
human drama that was central to the nation's political
tribulations in the dark years of betrayal, the blacklist,
and naming names. I Married a Communist is an American
tragedy as only Philip Roth can conceive one--fierce and
funny, eloquently rendered, and politically accurate.