The Rake’s Progress Giving Up The Ghost

'Zuckerman Unbound' (1981)
Z, now famous for a randy best seller, finds himself besieged by strangers—and a stalker. At least he gets to bed an actress.

'The Anatomy Lesson' (1984)
Now Z's the one who's flat on his back, though not alone. His orthopedic problems symptomize a dislocated soul. And he can't write anymore.

'The Prague Orgy' (1985)
Z gets outta Dodge—to communist Prague, in search of a trove of great, unpublished Yiddish stories. A writer's life is really no fun there.

'The Counterlife' (1987)
Z's brother Henry dies, but Z brings him fictionally back to life and sends him to Israel. H finds more adventure than he did back in his dental office.

'American Pastoral' (1997)
Now impotent after prostate surgery, Z re-creates the life of an old schoolmate, once the athlete-hero of Newark, whose daughter became a bomb-making radical.

'I Married a Communist' (1998)
Z gets the real story of another old hero: a leftwing actor not only blacklisted, but the subject of an exposé by his ex-wife.