Writer Joseph Epstein also writes for National Review magazine.

A memoir by one Benjamin Taylor on his friendship with
the highly successful and well-known author Philip Roth,
said memoir titled Here We Are: My Friendship with Philip Roth,
gets the Joseph Epstein treatment in late July 2020 (online).
In it, Mr. Epstein, referring to Philip Roth,
quotes Saul Bellow, who spoke to
the New Yorker's David Remnick about Mr. Roth:

"... he feels [that] a writer should provoke --
and he should, if that is the way he is inclined --
but he can't expect to evade the results of this provocation."

The preceding is a timely warning to keberoxu, to be sure,
and
I reckon it applies to Joseph Epstein as well.