The Anatomy Lesson

'Scorchingly funny, gravely disconcerting' - Harold Pinter Pulitzer Prize-winner Philip Roth's remarkable successor to The Ghost Writer and Zuckerman Bound , in which the iconic protagonist reaches a crisis. Nathan Zuckerman is past forty, past the high point of his success, but by no means past pain. When the man for whom work was life is struck by a mysterious pure pain, which begins in his neck and shoulders, invades his torso and possesses his spirit, he finds himself physically unable to write a line. Doctor after doctor fails to uncover the cause and to assuage the symptoms, and Zuckerman begins to wonder if his own books might be the culprit. He tries piles of painkillers, then vodka, then marijuana. He contemplates scaring the pain out of his system with the threat of suicide. He toys with a dramatic career change. What will it take for the pain to finally leave him alone?