The Anatomy Lesson
Author: Roth, Philip
ISBN: 9780099476610
Publisher: RANDOM HOUSE UK
Year first published: 06 Oct 2016
Pages: 304
Format: Paperback / softback
Philip Roth's entire oeuvre - 31 books - to be reissued in electric new Vintage jackets for October 2016
'The Anatomy Lesson is a ferocious, heartfelt book - lavish with laughs and flamboyant inventions' John Updike
With his fortieth birthday receding into the distance, along with his hairline and his most successful novel, the writer Nathan 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, whose work was his life, finds himself physically unable to write a line.
He treks from one doctor to another, but none can find a cause for the pain and nobody can assuage it. Could it be, he wonders to himself, that the cause of the pain is nothing less than the books he has written?
As he grapples with this possibility, he tries an onslaught of painkillers, then vodka, and finally marijuana. He contemplates threatening the pain with suicide, attempting to scare it out of his system. He toys with the prospect of a dramatic career change. What will it take for the pain to finally leave him alone?
ISBN: 9780099476610
Publisher: RANDOM HOUSE UK
Year first published: 06 Oct 2016
Pages: 304
Format: Paperback / softback
Philip Roth's entire oeuvre - 31 books - to be reissued in electric new Vintage jackets for October 2016
'The Anatomy Lesson is a ferocious, heartfelt book - lavish with laughs and flamboyant inventions' John Updike
With his fortieth birthday receding into the distance, along with his hairline and his most successful novel, the writer Nathan 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, whose work was his life, finds himself physically unable to write a line.
He treks from one doctor to another, but none can find a cause for the pain and nobody can assuage it. Could it be, he wonders to himself, that the cause of the pain is nothing less than the books he has written?
As he grapples with this possibility, he tries an onslaught of painkillers, then vodka, and finally marijuana. He contemplates threatening the pain with suicide, attempting to scare it out of his system. He toys with the prospect of a dramatic career change. What will it take for the pain to finally leave him alone?