The Human Stain
First edition cover | |
| Author | Philip Roth |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Michaela Sullivan |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Houghton Mifflin |
Publication date | May 2000 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 352 |
| ISBN | 0-618-05945-8 |
| OCLC | 43109968 |
| 813/.54 21 | |
| LC Class | PS3568.O855 H8 2000 |
The Human Stain is a novel by Philip Roth, published May 5, 2000. The book is set in Western Massachusetts in the late 1990s. Its narrator is 65-year-old author Nathan Zuckerman, who appears in several earlier Roth novels, including two books that form a loose trilogy with The Human Stain, American Pastoral (1997) and I Married a Communist (1998). Zuckerman acts largely as an observer as the complex story of the protagonist, Coleman Silk, a retired professor of classics, is slowly revealed.
A national bestseller, The Human Stain was adapted in 2003 as a film by the same name directed by Robert Benton.