Removal of a cancerous prostate has left him impotent and incontinent, prompting many pages devoted to the finer points of adult diapers and pads. Now making his ninth appearance in a novel by Roth, Zuckerman possesses the will but no longer the means to perpetuate his career as an adulterous Lothario. The ghost of the old king appears on the parapet at Elsinore, and Horatio commands: "Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!" The ghost promptly exits, but Zuckerman sticks around for nearly 300 pages and never stops speaking, though almost ready to give up the ghost. Our first clue to the state of Zuckerman's aging mind and body is the title, plucked by Philip Roth from the first act of Hamlet. Our difficult old companion Nathan Zuckerman, like his gifted creator, has seen better days. Facebook Twitter Email Novelist Philip Roth is 74 and has been writing about Nathan Zuckerman since the 1970s.
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