It is Roth's 31st book, "a work of fiction set in the summer of 1944 that tells of a polio epidemic and its effects on a closely knit Newark community and its children.

Nemesis explores the effect of a 1944 polio epidemic on a closely knit, family-oriented Newark Jewish community of Weequahic neighborhood.

At the center of Nemesis is a vigorous, dutiful, 23-year-old teacher and playground director Bucky Cantor, a javelin thrower and weightlifter, who is devoted to his charges.

Focusing on Cantor's dilemmas as polio begins to ravage his playground, Roth examines some of the central themes of pestilence: fear, panic, anger, guilt, bewilderment, suffering, and pain.

Finally, Cantor faces a romantic crisis, becoming engaged to his beloved girlfriend (a fellow teacher who is working as a counselor at a Jewish summer camp).