While I'm on the subject of Philip Roth.

My therapist, loathe as he is to own up to it, spent his youth about a dozen or so miles from where Philip Roth spent his. And though Roth and my therapist are probably about 20 years apart, my therapist's aunt was friends with the Roth family.

One Saturday my good doctor found himself in attendance at a Bar Mitzvah Roth was also attending. Some one came up to my therapist's aunt and bid her to shake hands with Roth. To meet the great man.

To which she replied, "I'm not touching that hand."