Exit Ghost
by: Philip Roth
Published by: Vintage International
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Reviewed by Julie Failla Earhart
In August 1979, Philip Roth introduced Nathan Zuckerman to the literary scene with The Ghost Writer. Zuckerman and the public hit it off and a fictional American icon was born. Now in his ninth appearance in Exit Ghost, Roth reportedly gives readers one last peek into the life and times of this legendary figure.
When readers first met Zuckerman, the story was set in the 1950s. It is now late 2004. Zuckerman has lived the last eleven years on a mountaintop in Massachusetts, void of any communication of note with the outside world. Yes, he is aware of the events of 9/11, but that awful day and its aftermath did not seem to touch the sanctity of his peaceful world. Zuckerman has come to New York to pursue a new prostrate/incontinence solution.
As he spends time in his hotel room and wandering the once-familiar streets, Zuckerman happens to see an old friend of his, Amy Bellette, from The Ghost Writer. It’s apparent that Amy is deathly ill; the scar running across her half-sheaved head is a giveaway. This sight touches Zuckerman in a way he had no foreseen.
Reading a copy of the “The New York Review,” as he sat in one of his favorite restaurants, Zuckerman sees an ad from a young couple to want to swap homes with someone in rural New England, “…ideally for a year.”
Zuckerman calls Jaime and Billy. The city has worked its magic on him and he wants to stay. After meeting the couple, Zuckerman finds himself in lust with Jaime; a feeling he hasn’t experienced since his prostrate was removed.
This is the first time that I have read a Zuckerman novel. I have known about him in ways that many know Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn without ever reading Twain, I feel as if I have made a new friend and want to go back to read all previous novels. There was no feeling of missing backstory and nothing that got in the way of my enjoying Exit Ghost, a wonderful new work by one of America’s greatest writers.
Armchair Interviews says: Philip Roth does it again!
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