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Matthew Check’s memoir, What Would Philip Roth Do? is as irreverent, searching, and painfully honest as the title suggests. At its core, this is a book about a Jewish musician wrestling with questions of identity, love, art, and meaning, all while guided, sometimes harassed, by the imagined voice of Philip Roth. What emerges is both a coming-of-age narrative and a meditation on how art and artists shape our inner lives.

From the opening chapters, Check makes it clear that Roth is not simply an author he admires, but a phantom presence he converses with. “Hi, Matt,” the Roth in his head quips. “Haven’t seen you since your Mexican-Jewish girlfriend dumped you. Are you still putting jalapeños on your challah?”

The voice is at once playful, caustic, and probing, forcing the narrator to confront his choices. This ongoing dialogue gives the memoir an unusual texture: part confession, part literary séance.

Themes of sexual awakening and romantic misadventure run throughout. His early encounters, described with a frankness that will make some readers squirm, also lay the groundwork for deeper reflections on unrequited love. As he writes about Paulette, his high-school crush who inspired his first song on the banjo, he realizes that music became the outlet for feelings he couldn’t otherwise articulate. Romance and bluegrass intertwine repeatedly, each failed relationship sparking another melody.

Jewish identity is another central thread. Check wrestles with cultural expectations, family pressures, and the weight of history, often filtering his anxieties through humor. His time in Spain, where he brings the banjo to the streets of Madrid and stumbles through awkward romantic entanglements, underscores his sense of being both insider and outsider. Later, his volunteer work in Israel sharpens these questions, as he learns what it means to carry his heritage into unfamiliar contexts.

This memoir will resonate most with readers who appreciate candid explorations of the messy intersections of art, sex, and identity. Fans of Philip Roth will find themselves amused, and perhaps unsettled, by the way Roth’s ghostly commentary punctuates the narrative. Musicians, especially those drawn to the obsessive practice of an instrument, will recognize the banjo’s role as both tormentor and salvation.

At times, the book is raw and unfiltered; at others, it’s funny in the best Rothian sens, cutting and self-aware. For readers willing to embrace both the cringe and the insight, What Would Philip Roth Do? is a memoir that captures what it means to search for voice, love, and belonging in a world where nothing ever quite fits.