The final installment of the Zuckerman trilogy (after THE GHOST WRITER and ZUCKERMAN UNBOUND), published in 1983, follows the further misadventures of the middle-aged novelist, Nathan Zuckerman. This time around, Zuckerman is troubled by not only an uncharacteristic case of writer's block but a nameless, undiagnosed, painful illness that he begins to think may have been caused by the books he has written. He tries various medications (including pot, booze, and sex) and finally, in frustration, abandons writing entirely in order to go to medical school. (Zuckerman will begin to make return appearances, 15 years later, in other Roth novels, beginning with AMERICAN PASTORAL in 1997.)
