Reviewed by Isabella Agostino

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I can’t decide whether I absolutely love or hate the way Roth ended this, which is why I docked a star.

The chaos of the last chapter mirrors the kind of whirlwind you get swept up in when people close to you pass. I felt disoriented, unable to fully absorb all the information and the sudden convergence of characters we had spent hundreds of pages viewing from afar.

Simply because I am me and Philip Roth is Philip Roth, I won’t accuse him of wrapping things up too quickly, but I will say that, in my opinion, the last chapter felt a bit like ticking boxes. I loved the previous chapter so much that I became especially critical of how this final one played out. It felt over before the last page.

The fact that I’m sad it’s over says a lot, but the fact that I felt that sadness with ten pages left—when I could already see that this would end with yet another Vietnam story and Nathan Zuckerman being a bit of a romantic—says even more.