Like a latter-day Gregor Samsa, Professor David Kepesh wakes up one morning to find that he has been transformed. But where Kafka's protagonist turned into a giant beetle, the narrator of this fantasy has become a 155-pound female breast. What follows is a funny exploration of the implications of metamorphosis.
David Kepesh Series
This series delves into the profound and often poignant aspects of human existence, focusing on the intricacies of relationships, love, and identity. With unflinching honesty and piercing psychological depth, the author explores the inner lives of characters, revealing their desires, fears, and search for meaning. Each narrative is a masterful character study that leaves readers contemplating their own life choices and the human condition.
Recommended Reading Order
The Professor of Desire
- 263 pages
- 10 hours of reading
As a student in college, David Kepesh styles himself "a rake among scholars, a scholar among rakes". Little does he realize how prophetic this motto will be - or how damning. For as Philip Roth follows Kepesh from the domesticity of childhood into the vast wilderness of erotic possibility, from a ménage a trios in London to the throes of loneliness in New York, he creates a supremely intelligent, affecting, and often hilarious novel about the dilemma of pleasure: where we seek it; why we flee it; and how we struggle to make a truce between dignity and desire.
The Dying Animal
- 176 pages
- 7 hours of reading
David, white-haired & over 60, is a TV culture critic & lecturer at a New York college. He meets Consuela, a 24-year-old student, daughter of wealthy Cuban exiles, who puts his life into erotic disorder & haunts him for the next eight years.