The last ordeal of Nathan Zuckerman, the indomitable literary adventurer of Roth's nine Zuckerman books, like Rip Van Winkle returning to his hometown to find that all has changed, Nathan Zuckerman comes back to New York, the city he left eleven years before. Alone on his New England mountain, Zuckerman has been nothing but a writer: no voices, no media, no terrorist threats, no women, no news, no tasks other than his work and the enduring of old age.
Walking the streets like a revenant, he quickly makes three connections that explode his carefully protected solitude. One is with a young couple with whom, in a rash moment, he offers to swap homes. They will flee post-9/11 Manhattan for his country refuge, and he will return to city life. But from the time he meets them, Zuckerman also wants to swap his solitude for the erotic challenge of the young woman, Jamie, whose allure draws him back to all that he thought he had left behind: intimacy, the vibrant play of heart and body.
The second connection is with a figure from Zuckerman's youth, Amy Bellette, companion and muse to Zuckerman's first literary hero, E. I. Lonoff. The once irresistible Amy is now an old woman depleted by illness, guarding the memory of that grandly austere American writer who showed Nathan the solitary path to a writing vocation.
The third connection is with Lonoff's would-be biographer, a young literary hound who will do and say nearly anything to get to Lonoff's "great secret." Suddenly involved, as he never wanted or intended to be involved again, with love, mourning, desire, and animosity, Zuckerman plays out an interior drama of vivid and poignant possibilities.
Haunted by Roth's earlier work The Ghost Writer, Exit Ghost is an amazing leap into yet another phase in this great writer's insatiable commitment to fiction.
Exit Zuckerman: Talking with Philip Roth
When we talked with Philip Roth for the Amazon Wire podcast, we asked him about his long relationship with his fictional surrogate, Nathan Zuckerman, his decision to bring Zuckerman back (and say goodbye to him) in Exit Ghost, and the difficulties of aging for novelists, and we managed to touch on George Plimpton, Annie Dillard, Grace Paley, and The Tempest, along with nearly all of the nine Zuckerman books. You can listen to interview in the podcast above, or read the full transcript.
Zuckerman Returns to Manhattan: Philip Roth Reads from Exit Ghost
When Nathan Zuckerman returns to Manhattan from his self-imposed rural retreat for the first time in 11 years in Exit Ghost, what does he find? Along with his surprising and unsettling encounters with an aged and ill woman who had once been a young mystery to him, an aggressive biographer who won't take no for an answer, and an alluring young writer who tempts him back into the adventure of seduction, he is confronted with a city whose streets are filled with people behaving quite differently than a decade before. "For one who frequently went without talking to anyone for days at a time," he thinks. "I had to wonder what that had previously held them up had collapsed in people to make incessant talking into a telephone preferable to walking about under no one's surveillance, momentarily solitary, assimilating the street through one's animal senses and thinking the myriad thoughts that the activities of a city inspire." Listen to Philip Roth read an excerpt from Exit Ghost.
Looking Back on Zuckerman The Ghost Writer: Introduces Nathan Zuckerman in the 1950s, a budding writer who spends a night in the secluded New England farmhouse of his idol, E. I. Lonoff, and meets a haunting young woman whom he imagines could be the paradigmatic victim of Nazi persecution. Zuckerman Unbound: Zuckerman, with newfound fame as a bestselling author, ventures onto the streets of Manhattan in the final year of the turbulent '60s, where he is assumed by fans and enemies to be his own fictional satyr, Gilbert Carnovsky ("Hey, you do all that stuff in that book?"). The Anatomy Lesson: At 40, Zuckerman comes down with a mysterious affliction--pure pain, beginning in his neck and shoulders, invading his torso, and taking possession of his spirit. Zuckerman is unable to write a line, but the novel provides some of the funniest and fiercest scenes in all of Roth's fiction. The Prague Orgy: In quest of the unpublished manuscript of a martyred Yiddish writer, Zuckerman travels to Soviet-occupied Prague in the mid-1970s, where he discovers, among the oppressed writers with whom he quickly becomes embroiled, an appealingly perverse kind of heroism. Zuckerman Bound: The latest in the Library of America's collected Roth works brings together his first Zuckerman trilogy, The Ghost Writer, Zuckerman Unbound, and The Anatomy Lesson, along with the epilogue, The Prague Orgy. The Counterlife: From New Jersey to England to the West Bank, the characters in The Counterlife, illuminated by the skeptical, enveloping intelligence of Nathan Zuckerman, are tempted unceasingly by the prospect of an alternative existence that can reverse their fate. American Pastoral: Swede Levov, legendary high-school athlete and boyhood idol of Nathan Zuckerman, is wrenched overnight out of the American pastoral and into the indigenous American berserk when his teenage daughter proves capable of an outlandishly savage act of political terrorism. I Married a Communist: The rise and fall of Ira Ringold, a big American roughneck who becomes a big-time 1940s radio star, takes the young Zuckerman under his wing, and is destroyed, as both a performer and a man, in the McCarthy witchhunt of the 1950s. The Human Stain: Coleman Silk, an aging classics professor forced to retire when his colleagues decree that he is a racist, has a secret, kept for 50 years from all around him, including his friend Nathan Zuckerman, who sets out to understand how this ingeniously contrived life came unraveled.
I doubt there are many people who anticipated the new Zuckerman novel more eagerly than I did. I was sorely disappointed. "Exit Ghost" rehashes many of the themes already covered more deftly in "Everyman"--namely, the ravages of aging and the crushing inevitability of death. ("Exit Ghost" also deals with other Roth obsessions, including his insistence that a clear line separates the life of an artist and his art; Roth has addressed this issue far more masterfully in prior works as well.) But this time around the reader must endure a small cast of poorly drawn characters, utterly unconvincing dialogue and, perhaps worst of all, a prose style that is uncharacteristically stilted. Roth/Zuckerman seems to have lost his literary mojo. But perhaps that's the point: the reader gets to witness, in all its horror, the waning artistic powers of a once great writer.
When Nathan Zuckerman, renowned novelist, extricated himself from the chaotic life of New York City by moving to a remote area of the Berkshire Mtns some eleven years prior, it was more or less by choice though he had been receiving anti-Semitic hate-mail. But two years later, at age sixty-two, the impacts of prostate cancer, incontinence and impotence, made his isolation a necessity, insulating him from unpleasant social situations.
It is only the possibility of a medical procedure that could limit his incontinence that lures him back to the city. Beyond the cheery optimism of the medical people that belies any real chance for success, Zuckerman is immediately enmeshed in the hubbub of NYC, in particular observing that the vast preponderance of pedestrians have a cell phone glued to their ears, the anti-social implications being beyond doubt. But the jolt of city life has Zuckerman answering an ad where a couple desires to trade their NYC apartment residence for life in rural New England for one year.
And so begins a couple of very unsettling days where feelings that he had set aside for years threaten to engulf him. His attraction to Jamie, the sensuous wife and fledgling writer, nearly overwhelms him, the frustration palpable. He rails against a reputation seeking biographer, a former lover of Jamie, who seems to be on a mission to destroy a lifetime of work of a novelist friend, long dead, over a long buried indiscretion. In these situations that demand his full powers, Nate is forced to confront his aging and the very real loss of physical and mental prowess. He resorts to writing He-She dialogs where he has the conservations with Jamie that he cannot actually bring himself to have in person. It's all rather sad but the book cannot be put down. I think there is another chapter in Nate's life.
In his latest creation, Roth shows that even a 71 year old incontinent and impotent Zuckerman (Roth in disguise) can still produce amazingly poignant and truly important literature. The book centers around the attempt to regain continence through a new procedure, while at the same time showing that regardless of the state of inoperative reproductive equipment, thoughts of sexuality still meander frequently and aggressively through the male mind.
At the same time, Roth indicates his feeling that we have reached the "End of the age of literature." During his stay in New York City to undergo his procedure, he becomes involved with a reporter who is planning to write a biography about a great, but all but forgotten master American short story author. It seems that the author may or may not have had a deep dark secret that he wanted buried forever. The biographer finds out what he believes is that secret, and plans to reveal it to the world.
Through the book, Roth becomes involved in great sexual fantasy with a beautiful lady half his age. Since he is unable to actually act on those thoughts, due to his physical malady, he fantasizes and creates imaginary dialogue around that particular lady and the wonders of her sensuality and sexuality.
Once again, Roth writes a wondrously autobiographical book which the reader can virtually insert himself, and feel as though he has become Roth in the text. This ability is Roth's special gift. He is able to capture his experiences and feelings and then turn them into words in a manner that is virtually universal. This ability has always characterized his writing throughout his entire career. This book is recommended for all readers, especially those over the age of 50.
When we talked with Philip Roth for the Amazon Wire podcast, we asked him about his long relationship with his fictional surrogate, Nathan Zuckerman, his decision to bring Zuckerman back (and say goodbye to him) in Exit Ghost, and the difficulties of aging for novelists, and we managed to touch on George Plimpton, Annie Dillard, Grace Paley, and The Tempest, along with nearly all of the nine Zuckerman books. You can listen to interview in the podcast above, or read the full transcript. 
The Ghost Writer: Introduces Nathan Zuckerman in the 1950s, a budding writer who spends a night in the secluded New England farmhouse of his idol, E. I. Lonoff, and meets a haunting young woman whom he imagines could be the paradigmatic victim of Nazi persecution. 
Zuckerman Unbound: Zuckerman, with newfound fame as a bestselling author, ventures onto the streets of Manhattan in the final year of the turbulent '60s, where he is assumed by fans and enemies to be his own fictional satyr, Gilbert Carnovsky ("Hey, you do all that stuff in that book?"). 
The Anatomy Lesson: At 40, Zuckerman comes down with a mysterious affliction--pure pain, beginning in his neck and shoulders, invading his torso, and taking possession of his spirit. Zuckerman is unable to write a line, but the novel provides some of the funniest and fiercest scenes in all of Roth's fiction. 
The Prague Orgy: In quest of the unpublished manuscript of a martyred Yiddish writer, Zuckerman travels to Soviet-occupied Prague in the mid-1970s, where he discovers, among the oppressed writers with whom he quickly becomes embroiled, an appealingly perverse kind of heroism. 
Zuckerman Bound: The latest in the Library of America's collected Roth works brings together his first Zuckerman trilogy, The Ghost Writer, Zuckerman Unbound, and The Anatomy Lesson, along with the epilogue, The Prague Orgy. 
The Counterlife: From New Jersey to England to the West Bank, the characters in The Counterlife, illuminated by the skeptical, enveloping intelligence of Nathan Zuckerman, are tempted unceasingly by the prospect of an alternative existence that can reverse their fate. 
American Pastoral: Swede Levov, legendary high-school athlete and boyhood idol of Nathan Zuckerman, is wrenched overnight out of the American pastoral and into the indigenous American berserk when his teenage daughter proves capable of an outlandishly savage act of political terrorism. 
I Married a Communist: The rise and fall of Ira Ringold, a big American roughneck who becomes a big-time 1940s radio star, takes the young Zuckerman under his wing, and is destroyed, as both a performer and a man, in the McCarthy witchhunt of the 1950s. 
The Human Stain: Coleman Silk, an aging classics professor forced to retire when his colleagues decree that he is a racist, has a secret, kept for 50 years from all around him, including his friend Nathan Zuckerman, who sets out to understand how this ingeniously contrived life came unraveled. 
