A Fax From Philip Roth
It’s September 2013. Preparations at the French Embassy are underway for U.N. General Assembly week, and I am told that the minister of foreign and European affairs, Laurent Fabius, will be decorating Philip Roth as Commander of the Legion of Honor at the groundbreaking ceremony for Albertine, a new French bookshop on Fifth Avenue.
I am put in touch with Andrew Wylie, Roth’s agent, who shares his contact details. A phone number. It rings, and Roth picks up. He surely has better things to do than talk shop and logistics for this official ceremony, I think. I’m 29, timid, bashful, and nervous. I begin to rush through the details.