Henry Roth's final novel, An American Type , is nothing short of a miracle, a lyrical work of immense poignancy from a writer whose biographical story has no parallel in American literature. Roth, best known for his towering immigrant novel Call It Sleep , emerged from a literary hibernation of 60 years in 1994 with Mercy of a Rude Stream, a fictional quartet that would be hailed by as "a landmark of the American literary century." In contrast to...