“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.