Philip Roth is well known to Russian readers for his novel The Human Brand and its film adaptation (A Tarnished Reputation, 2003) starring Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman. The story told in "Nemesis", for all the ingenuousness of the plot, is akin to an ancient Greek drama. The book's main character, Eugene "Bucky" Kantor, is an energetic, determined twenty-three-year-old weightlifter and javelin thrower who is everyone's favorite. He, a physical education teacher, is in charge of a summer sports ground, where every day he plays softball side by side with the guys. If it were not for poor eyesight, Bakki would have long been in the active American army, because it was 1944. That summer in his native Newark turned out to be hotter than ever, when a terrible polio epidemic hit the city, killing children every day. Filled with a sense of duty, he tries to protect his students, all to no avail. Fear and panic, suffering and anger at the injustice of the world lead the unbending Bakki into confusion. His beloved tries to come to his aid, but then an inexorable fate overtakes him...