The Plot Against America (audiobook)

The Plot Against America is Philip Roth's 2004 alternate history novel in which aviation hero Charles Lindbergh defeats Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential election. The story follows a working-class Jewish family in Newark, New Jersey, as America slides toward fascism and antisemitism under the new administration.

Yes, HBO produced a six-episode miniseries adaptation in 2020, created by David Simon and Ed Burns, the team behind The Wire. The adaptation brought renewed attention to the novel and its themes of authoritarianism and antisemitism in American politics.

In the novel, Charles Lindbergh rather than Wendell Willkie becomes the Republican nominee and defeats Roosevelt in 1940, keeping the United States out of World War II. The real Lindbergh was indeed an aviation hero who was sympathetic to Nazi Germany and led the America First movement opposing US entry into the war, making the premise historically grounded.

The novel is narrated from the perspective of a young boy named Philip Roth, growing up in the same Newark neighborhood where the real Philip Roth was raised in the 1940s. The family in the novel closely mirrors Roth's own family, blending autobiography with counterfactual history to heighten the sense of personal vulnerability.