EVERYMAN (Philip Roth) - March 27/07

A superb - yet thoroughly depressing - novel revolving around the various health problems suffered by the protagonist. The book opens with his funeral and then follows him over the years - with an emphasis on his failed relationships and his surgeries. Roth proves to be an exceptional writer, although - admittedly - I didn't figure out until after the funeral that the main character was the one in the ground. Still, Roth paints an extraordinarily vivid portrait of a man and his regrets... This has to be the most bleak and flat-out honest look at aging I've ever come across. ***1/2 out of ****