The Ghost Writer

Roth, Philip

ISBN 10: 0224017640 / ISBN 13: 9780224017640

Published by Jonathan Cape, 1979

About this Item

1979, Hardcover with dust jacket, good copy, 1st UK printing , Hardcover with dust jacket, good copy, 1st UK printing , Hardcover with dust jacket, good copy, 1st UK printing.

Seller Inventory # 220937606

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Ghost Writer
• Publisher: Jonathan Cape
• Publication Date: 1979
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0224017640
• ISBN 13: 9780224017640
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included

About this title

Synopsis

Missing dust cover

Review

A middle-aged writer recalls his younger self. At 23, Nathan Zuckerman has had four stories published and a small, flattering Saturday Review up-and-coming-author profile (complete with a photo of him playing with his ex-girlfriend's cat), which he purports to scorn. As genuine and polite as he seems, Zuckerman has already hurt his family with his autobiographical art and ruined his relationship with adultery and honesty. Visiting his reclusive idol (famed for his "blend of sympathy and pitilessness") in the Berkshires, the writer watches himself watching himself and attempts to confront his work and life. Instead he finds himself turning reality into metafiction. A quote he happens upon from Henry James only complicates matters further: "We work in the dark--we do what we can--we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art." Events, however, have their revenge, weaving more out of control than even he can anticipate or ask for. Philip Roth is the master of the uncomfortable, and his alter ego a connoisseur of self-involvement, self-loathing, and self-examination. ("Virtuous reader, if you think that after intercourse all animals are sad, try masturbating on the daybed in E. I. Lonoff's study and see how you feel when it's over.")