"Ranks among the major achievements in the literature of our time." -- Village Voice

"A thoughtful... elegant novel... A fine display of literary skills." -- New York Times Book Review

Philip Roth's profound and often hilarious novel -- the central book in Roth's Kepesh trilogy -- about where we seek pleasure and why we flee it.

As a student in college, David Kepesh styles himself "a rake among scholars, a scholar among rakes." Little does he realize how prophetic his motto will be -- or how damning. For as Roth follows Kepesh from the domesticity of childhood into the vast wilderness of erotic possibility, from a ménage á trois in London to the throes of loneliness in New York, Kapesh confronts the central dilemma of pleasure: how to make a truce between dignity and desire; and how to survive the ordeal of an unhallowed existence.

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• Publication Date: April 21, 2026
• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 274 Pages
• File Size: 19 KB