Professor talks Roth biography

UConn professor Ross Miller has taken on the daunting task of constructing the official biography of Philip Roth. Miller himself has known Roth for about 25 years, and aside from the official biography, he has been the editor for the Library of America's "Complete Works of Philip Roth."

Yesterday at the Co-op, Miller discussed his progress on the biography which is not likely to be published for a few more years.

"I don't know how anyone can write a literary biography without knowing the writer," Miller said. "You need to have magnetic contact with them but just at the edges because you also need that level of objectivity."

He discussed what he called the "autobiographical paradox," where Roth created so many scenarios and characters with origins in reality that it became hard for him to distinguish reality from fiction.

"Philip Roth probably knows as much about his own life as I do," Miller said. "Possibly even less. He cannot remember what's invention and what's memory."

Miller 's book won't be finished for a while, he said, due to the enormity of the task. "I've just been writing and writing," Miller said. "I anticipate a draft being ready in about two years." He said this after joking that he would have to wait until the aging Roth dies to publish the work.