Book Reviews
Sabbath's Theater [is] Mr. Roth's longest and, in my judgment, richest, most rewarding novel.... Ever since Portnoy's Complaint, Mr. Roth has been pre-eminent as a literary stand-up comedian, and some of the routines in Sabbath's Theater show him in top form.... [However,] there is plenty of nastiness in this book, and certain readers will find it repellent, not funny at all. One of Sabbath's friends, his patience exhausted by Mickey's abusive behavior, calls it "the discredited male polemic's last gasp." There is something to this charge, and the novel is stronger for allowing readers to consider the hero in such terms, if they choose. But it would be a mistake to do so exclusively, for that would involve foreclosing on the sympathies we give to the outrageous Sabbath when, in a section of 60 pages, the heart of the novel and one of the great sequences in American fiction, he returns to the Jersey Shore of his boyhood.
William H. Pritchard - New York Times Book Review
The novel fails to open out into a larger comment on society or our shared experience of mortality: Sabbath remains such a willfully selfish character that his adventures become a kind of black hole, absorbing rather than emitting light. He does not grow or learn from Drenka's death or his other losses; he simply learns to reaffirm the narcissism that has informed his entire life. As a result, Sabbath cannot assume a tragic stature; he remains, merely, pathetic.
Michiko Yakutani - New York Times
This is Roth's twenty-first novel and displays all the Rothian concerns and stylistic quirks his readers have grown accustomed to, only more exaggerated. It is a long, long book, but it grows on you.—Bonnie Smothers
Booklist
Roth's National Book Award-winning novel is a hilarious, beautifully written spoof about an aging puppeteer who finds himself rudderless when the death of his mistress, Drenka, effectively removes the driving force of his life: sex. Mickey Sabbath, now resigned to preparing for his own death, toasts all of the formerly significant figures in his life, including his first wife, who walked out on him; his mother, who was consumed by the death of Mickey's older brother during the war; and the nubile Drenka, whose appeal for Mickey's sexual fealty shortly before her death falls upon deaf ears. David Dukes reads this rip-roaring tale with a sensitivity that complements Roth's well-wrought prose. Recommended for all serious fiction collections, but advise your patrons to listen with the car windows up and the volume down. —Mark Annichiarico.
Library Journal