Between the discussions, a recording of an interview with Mr. Roth played, in which he remembered being concerned about how his parents would react to the bitter controversy that he knew was going to envelop “Portnoy’s Complaint.” “I felt I had to prepare them,” he said. So he met with them at a restaurant, where he told them that it “appears it’s going to cause a sensation,” and that they would be besieged by journalists.
Only after his mother’s death did his father reveal that after leaving the restaurant, his mother burst into tears and said, “He has delusions of grandeur.”
-“Philip Roth, Provacateur, Is Celebrated at 75,”