 First edition cover | |
| Author | Philip Roth |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Series | Zuckerman Bound |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Farrar, Straus & Giroux |
Publication date | 19 September 1979 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 180 pp |
| ISBN | 0-374-16189-5 |
| OCLC | 4933340 |
| 813/.5/4 | |
| LC Class | PZ4.R8454 Gh PS3568.O855 |
| Followed by | Zuckerman Unbound |
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The Ghost Writer is a 1979 novel by the American authorPhilip Roth. It is the first of Roth's novels narrated byNathan Zuckerman, one of the author's putative fictionalalter egos, and constitutes the first book in hisZuckerman Bound trilogy. The novel touches on themes common to many Roth works, including identity, the responsibilities of authors to their subjects, and the condition of Jews in America. Parts of the novel are a reprise ofThe Diary of Anne Frank.[1]
Nathan Zuckerman is a promising young writer who spends a night in the home of E.I. Lonoff (a portrait, it has been argued, ofBernard Malamud orHenry Roth, or a composite of both),[2] an established author whom Zuckerman idolizes. Also staying in the Lonoff home is Amy Bellette, a young woman with a vague past whom the narrator apparently comes to suspect of beingAnne Frank, living in the United States anonymously, having survived the Holocaust. Many have observed similarities between Lonoff andIsaac Bashevis Singer.[3][4]
In 1983 a television adaptation was made of the book in the UK. It was directed byTristram Powell and starredRose Arrick,Claire Bloom,Sam Wanamaker,Cecile Mann,MacIntyre Dixon,Mark Linn-Baker, Ralph Morse,Joseph Wiseman, andPatricia Fellows.
The book was widely praised at publication. InThe New York Times Book Review, critic Harold Bloom said of the three collected Zuckerman novels, "Zuckerman Bound merits something reasonably close to the highest level of esthetic praise for tragicomedy."[5]
In 2018,Esquire listedThe Ghost Writer as one of Roth's seven essential books.[6]
The Pulitzer committee for fiction selectedThe Ghost Writer for the prize in 1980. The Pulitzer board, which has final say over awarding the prize, overrode their decision and choseNorman Mailer'sThe Executioner's Song instead.[7] The book was also a finalist for the 1980National Book Award.[8]
In 2007, Roth published the novelExit Ghost, whichMichiko Kakutani inThe New York Times called "elegiac" and "a kind of valedictory bookend toThe Ghost Writer."[9]
