Posted on August 11, 2021

On September 30, 2004 Philip Roth’s novel about what could’ve happened when a proto-fascist (Charles Lindbergh) is elected president of the U.S. was published. The Plot Against America was, of course, a brilliant piece of literary fiction, whose opening sentence, “Fear presides over these memories, a perpetual fear.” could describe what many of us were feeling on January 6 of this year. The reviewer in The New York Times (Paul Berman) wrote that Roth’s novel was, “…a fable of an alternative universe, in which America has gone fascist and ordinary life has been flattened under a steamroller of national politics and mass hatreds.” 

Now, of course, we see this alternative playing out in the Capitol and in state capitals, and wonder if this is the new normal. We only wish that Philip Roth were alive to today and could write a sequel that could tell us how it all plays out.

Since that’s an impossibility, we’re inviting writers to submit a short story of 1000 – 2000 words (give or take) that would serve as a micro-sequel to The Plot Against America that begins with the insurrection at the Capitol and has a Jewish orientation. Those entries of note will be published in a forthcoming edition of Fig Tree Lit, our monthly newsletter. (https://figtreebooks.net/fig-tree-lit/)

Submissions should be sent to Info@FigTreeBooks.net.