Book Talk: Getting to the Plot of The Plot Against America

[Meredith Quill]

Your Book Talk Topic!

[Inquisitionist]

In the book, Evelyn is younger than Bess rather than older.  I wonder if the show runners thought they needed the name recognition of Winona Ryder and therefore made the character older. 

A friend recommended the book to me, so I am reading it and watching the series on Demand simultaneously (keeping ahead of the show in my reading).  My friend loved the book and had some problems with the adaptation to TV.  I'm the other way around.  The book is told first person by Phil, the younger son, and that perspective gets tiring for me.  There are some incidents and recountings that I find to be, frankly, a slog to get through.  The TV series isn't perfect, but I find it moves along better, especially with refocusing things to more adult perspectives.  I'm particularly enjoying the actor who plays Alvin, and liking his character more on the screen than in the book.  (I've watched through episode 3.)

[DoctorAtomic]

It may also be that they cast an older actor for the rabbi as well and wanted to pair the actors as more age appropriate. Making her older in that time also puts an onus on her not to be an 'old maid', and therefore is more drawn into the relationship than a younger woman who could walk away and likely have more options. 

[Inquisitionist]

On 6/1/2020 at 12:56 PM, DoctorAtomic said:

It may also be that they cast an older actor for the rabbi as well and wanted to pair the actors as more age appropriate. Making her older in that time also puts an onus on her not to be an 'old maid', and therefore is more drawn into the relationship than a younger woman who could walk away and likely have more options. 

I think the age difference between the characters in the book was deliberate -- Evelyn was about 31 and the rabbi was around 60.  The fact that Evelyn was drawn to the rabbi despite her youth and "options" (which were already limited for an unmarried woman over 30 at that time) was, I think, part of the point.  Ryder's characterization seems more "little girl lost" than the impression I drew of Evelyn from the book.

Edited June 4, 2020 by Inquisitionist
Corrected typo.

[DoctorAtomic]

I'm not sure I'd call 61 'youth' though. 

[Inquisitionist]

6 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I'm not sure I'd call 61 'youth' though. 

Sorry, that was a typo.  In the book, Evelyn is about 31.

[Roseanna]

The book made some things clearer:

- The story about "Lindberg's baby was kidnapped by the Nazis and the couple was therefore in their power" was presented only as Evelyn's story that was later a conspiracy theory. The disappearing of Lindberg's plane was left a mystery.

- Alvin was presented as a boy who was never "a hero". He had lost his parents and Philip's father died to rise him but failed. As a teenager he stole from his employer, his get wounded out of simply stupidity when he went to the no-man's-land where he shot and spit on the enemy soldier who was already dead, after coming home continued to spend time with his petty criminal pals and falsified game machines. Even in the show, his silk suit told clearly that he had become a gangster. 

- Evelyn and her husband and Sandy's motive to become Lindbergh's supporters is described as opportunism: they benefit from it. The rabbi's synagogue hasn't been popular and now he becomes a celebrity, Evelyn thrives as a socialite who gets an invitation from White House. Both feel they have got power in the program to send Jews to the Mid-America - they can select families and out of spite select the Roths after their relations are broken. Sandy becomes a poster boy to a program to send Jewish boys to farms.

 - The Roth family and other Jews in the neighborhood are described as secular: they go the synagogue three times a year, a rabbi is needed only in celebration of births, bar mitzvas, marriages and funerals.  The Roths eat kosher but mainly because the grandparents visit them. However, they need each other socially because in the "goy" neighborhood  they would, if not discriminated, treated with exaggerated kindness.

[JasonCC]

I think having Evelyn as the older sister worked vs the book too....Winona Ryder is beautiful, but the clear implication in the setting of the show was that she had "missed her chances" by taking care of the mother, dating married gentiles, etc and was 42/43ish. Thus, more susceptible to believing everything and looking the other way at so much because she was being given a late-in-life 2nd chance to shine and have admiration and clout. I think for modern audiences that works better by having her as the eldest, unmarried sister.

Edited July 23, 2020 by JasonCC