EXIT GHOST

New York City, NY: Houghton Mifflin, 2007. First Edition. First Printing.. Hardcover. As New/As New Dust Jacket.. New York City, NY: Houghton Mifflin, 2007. Hardcover. As New/As New. First Edition/First Printing. 292 pages. The author's eighth and final "Zuckerman" novel. One of Philip Roth's finest achievements. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Philip Roth's "Exit Ghost". The final "Zuckerman" novel. The title is aptly allusive, as the very first novel featuring Nathan Zuckerman is "The Ghost Writer". After more than a decade in rural New England, Nathan Zuckerman, now 71 years old, returns to New York City, to consult his doctor about the prostate condition that has left him incontinent and impotent (the first two major blows in the Rothian universe, dire intimations of mortality, the third and final blow being death). "Roth being Roth, the plot is much more complicated than it at first appears. Within a few days of arriving in New York, Zuckerman accidentally encounters Amy Bellette, the woman who was once the muse/wife of his beloved idol, writer S. I. Lonoff. He also meets a young novelist, and promptly begins fantasizing about the writer's young and beautiful wife. There's also a sub-plot about a would-be Lonoff biographer, who enrages Zuckerman with his brashness and ambition, two qualities a faithful Roth reader cannot help ascribing to the young, sycophantic Zuckerman himself. Roth's voice is wise, rueful, and full of wit" (Publishers Weekly). The novel is "haunted by Roth's earlier works, the melancholy comedy of 'The Ghost Writer', the counterpoint of the imaginary and the real in 'The Counterlife', the distinctive dialogues of 'Deception'. A reminder of Roth's incomparable style and themes, and an amazing leap into yet another phase in this great writer's insatiable commitment to fiction" (Publisher's blurb). The publication of "Exit Ghost" coincides with the release of the Zuckerman Trilogy itself ("The Ghost Writer", "Zuckerman Unbound", and "The Anatomy Lesson") as Volume Four of The Library of America Series, the only writer so honored while he was still alive. Philip Roth died on May 22, 2018 of congestive heart failure, literally of heartbreak, at the age of 85. An absolute "must-have" title for Philip Roth collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed in black ink-pen on the title page by Philip Roth. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a late-modern classic. This is one of few such signed copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare signed copy thus. Six of Philip Roth's novels were selected as among the Top 20 works of American fiction of the last 25 years: "American Pastoral", "The Counterlife", "Operation Shylock", "Sabbath's Theater", "The Human Stain", and "The Plot Against America". One of the greatest writers of our time. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER PHILIP ROTH TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0618915478.