Product Description

The Ghost Writer introduces Nathan Zuckerman in the 1950s; a budding writer infatuated with the Great Books, discovering the contradictory claims of literature and experience while an overnight guest in the secluded New England farmhouse of his literary idol, E. I. Lonoff. At Lonoff's, Zuckerman meets Amy Bellette, a haunting young woman of indeterminate foreign background who turns out to be a former student of Lonoff's and who may also have been his mistress. Zuckerman, with his active, youthful imagination, wonders if she could be the paradigmatic victim of Nazi persecution. If she were, it might change his life...The first volume of the trilogy and epilogue Zuckerman Bound, The Ghost Writer is about the tensions between literature and life, artistic truthfulness and conventional decency - and about those implacable practitioners who live with the consequences of sacrificing one for the other.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15278 in Books
• Published on: 2005-06-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

About the Author
In 1997 Philip Roth won the Pulitzer Prize for American Pastoral. In 1998 he received the National Medal of Arts at the White House, and in 2002 received the highest award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Gold Medal in Fiction, previously awarded to John Dos Passos, William Faulkner, and Saul Bellow, among others. He has twice won the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2005, Philip Roth will become the third living American writer to have his work published in a comprehensive, definitive edition by the Library of America. The last of the eight volumes is scheduled for publication in 2013.

Customer Reviews

"What do I know, other than what I can imagine?"
Philip Roth, in this first of the Nathan Zuckerman novels, published in 1979, introduces Nathan as a twenty-three-year-old graduate of the University of Chicago who has had four short stories published and is looking for a mentor. Having contacted famed writer E. I. Lonoff, a writer living in rural New England with his wife of 35 years, he has accepted Lonfof's invitation to visit, but a snowstorm arises and Zuckerman finds himself spending the night with Lonoff and his wife. His observations about the life of Lonoff leads him imagine many stories--about Lonoff's past, his possible relationship with a young former student, and about his life in the countryside. In addition, he also reminisces about his own past, his relationships with his family, his feelings toward his own writing, his possible obligations to Jewish history, and the imagined past of Amy, Lonoff's former student, who resembles Anne Frank.

Though Zuckerman is full of hopes for a broader relationship with Lonoff, he soon discovers that his idol is a petulant and insecure man who has used and, in some cases, emotionally abused, those around him, all in the name of "art." Spending a sleepless winter night on the couch in Lonoff's den, Zuckerman investigates Lonoff's library, especially the collection of the writings of Henry James, which Lonoff admires so much, tries to write a letter to his estranged father (who is appalled by one of Nathan's recent short stories, which, he feels, feeds anti-Semitic prejudice), and ponders the relationship between genuine creativity, editing and revision, and the possible responsibilities of a writer beyond his own creative impulse.

A story about the writing of stories, this novella explores the fictional lives writers create from their own lives, and the sacrifices they make. As Lonoff's wife says of Lonoff, "Not living is what he makes his beautiful fiction out of." Lonoff himself says, "I turn sentences around...That's my life." And Henry James says in a motto Lonoff has framed in his den, "We give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and passion is our task." When Zuckerman leaves Lonoff's house the next morning, he no longer sees Lonoff as an idol, but Zuckerman is still committed to his destiny as a writer, anxious to go to a writers' retreat to work on some new stories. Thoughtful, imaginative, and great fun to read, The Ghost Writer is one of Roth's most tightly organized and revelatory works, essential reading for anyone interested in the creative process. Mary Whipple

Interesting look at the life of a young writer
This was my second Philip Roth book, the first being his famous "Portnoy's Complaint". I probably made a mistake reading "Portnoy" first, as I doubt any of his other works (or ANYONE'S other works) will be as consistently hilarious as "Portnoy" was. However, looked at as an independent work, "The Ghost Writer" provides a very interesting look at the mind of a writer, the responsiblities of a writer both to him/herself, the people who love him, and to the truth. For those interested in such subjects, "The Ghost Writer" provides for a very good read.

Catharsis
I can't believe I am the first to post my opinion of this book. I discovered Philip Roth recently, somehow never hearing of him before(the more I discover about Roth the more I am astounded that this could be possible). By the time I was finished reading The Ghost Writer, my first real influence had been set and my view of myself as writer altered. Every hour I dwelled on what I had experienced, and rushed out to buy the sequel, Zuckerman Unbound. The day I began to read it, this author who had entered my life like a thunderbolt only days earlier, this author who published his first book when he was my age, won his first Pulitzer prize. I have only known of his work for a week but the first thing across my mind was "It's about time!". I am not the first to relate to young Zuckerman and surely will not be the last.