Henry Roth (1906-1995), author of the great immigrant novel Call It Sleep, is one of the giants of American literature. After completing his first book in 1934, Roth lapsed into a legendary six-decade silence, only to reemerge with Mercy of a Rude Stream, hailed as "a landmark of the American literary century." In following Roth's tortured life from his childhood on the Jewish Lower East Side to his twilight years in New Mexico, literary critic Kellman has uncovered FBI files, spoken with family members and friends, and gained access to the tape in which Roth discussed the long-buried incest of his youth. Redemption is the saga of a great writer doomed to a life of psychological torment, but saved in the end by his search for deliverance.--From publisher description.