The Ghost Writer by Philip Roth

A comedy and satire on the writing life yet a profound exploration of the meaning of the Holocaust and the Diaspora and of individual and collective identity, Roth’s short coming-of-age novel is also a roman à clef, including versions of himself, Bernard Malamud, and Saul Bellow. The Malamud character, E. I. Lonoff, mordantly recounts his writing days: “I turn sentences around. That’s my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and I turn it around again. Then I have lunch. Then I come back in and write another sentence. . . .”