Nemesis, published in 2010, chronicles the impact of the 1944 polio epidemic on a middle-class Jewish community in Newark, New Jersey. The protagonist, 23-year-old Bucky Cantor, is ineligible to serve in the war and instead works as the neighborhood's playground director. Throughout the summer, Bucky witnesses the disease's devastating effects and attempts to cope with senseless tragedy. Throughout Nemesis, Roth explores themes of economic privilege, masculinity, mortality, and survivor's guilt.
In an interview with the NPR show Fresh Air, Roth explained that he never before saw polio as a subject for his writing. However, when he remembered how frightening and deadly the disease was, he found it important to convey the difficult emotions associated with this time in American history. According to Roth, writing Nemesis "became an exercise in recovering [my] own memories of childhood, when both the polio epidemic and World War II were in full swing."
Nemesis received lukewarm reviews upon its release. Though the novel is not the author's most celebrated work, Nicholas Lezard of The Guardian writes, "Roth's ear has never been better, and there is an almost unbelievable mastery of technique in the way that the prose slips between narrative and speech." In 2011, the book was shortlisted for the Wellcome Trust Book Prize. In April 2020, Richard Brody of the New Yorker wrote an article addressing the "eerie familiarities" of Nemesis in the global COVID-19 crisis.
