Toby Lloyd was born in London to a secular father and a Jewish mother. He studied English at Oxford University before moving
to America to pursue an MFA in creative writing at NYU. He has published short stories and essays in
Carve Magazine and the
Los Angeles Review of Books and was longlisted for the 2021 V. S. Pritchett Short Story Prize. He lives in London.
Lloyd's new novel is
Fervor.
At Electric Lit he tagged seven "novels and memoirs that reveal truths (or untruths) that were better left unsaid." One title on the list:
Zuckerman Bound by Philip Roth
Like [Francine] Prose, Roth was particularly energized by the ethics of writing Jewish stories in postwar America. This quartet of novels, written after he was 
catapulted to fame by Portnoy’s Complaint, chart the rise and fall of the novelist Nathan Zuckerman. In the beginning, Zuckerman is a writer in his twenties, enjoying the first flashes of literary success for short stories that offer intimate, sometimes unflattering portraits of Jewish characters. Already, he faces a backlash; certain Jewish authority figures accuse Zuckerman of recycling tropes that will provoke hatred of his people. As he embarks on his literary career, he has a choice. Will he do as he’s told by his father and his rabbi, and only write nice stories about nice Jewish families? Or will he continue down the road he’s started along, and pursue a darker form of artistic truth whatever the consequence?
Read about
the other entries on the list.
--Marshal Zeringue
to America to pursue an MFA in creative writing at NYU. He has published short stories and essays in Carve Magazine and the Los Angeles Review of Books and was longlisted for the 2021 V. S. Pritchett Short Story Prize. He lives in London.
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