The Dying Animal

By Philip Roth

Categories: Literature & Fiction

Philip Roth's 2001 novel is narrated by David Kepesh, now in his sixties, a well-known critic and teacher in New York who lives for pleasure and freedom. He tells of his affair with Consuela Castillo, a former student of twenty-four, of the jealousy it brought him, and of what happens years later when she returns to him with news of a serious illness.

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• Barack Obama: “Some of the great books by Jewish authors like Philip Roth or Saul Bellow, they are steeped with this sense of being an outsider, longing to get in, not sure what you're giving up — what you're willing to give up and what you're not willing to give up.”