Everyman. Philip Roth, 2006

This is a great book! It felt like a punch in the stomach - the sensation of reading it is almost physically painful...This is the American "Death of Ivan Ilych" written with the cruelty, and compassion, and lack of sentimental pity typical of a Tolstoy. The story of Everyman is the story of betrayal - the graduate betrayal of our body perpetrated on us with inevitability and indifference. It is also about the betrayal we commit against others and the loneliness of both - happy and unhappy creatures. There is a great scene towards the end of the novel, which compares to the grave-diggers scene in Hamlet. Yet, it the book is totally devoid of philosophizing. The language is matter of fact, simple, and bruising.

You have to have guts in order to read this book, let alone - write it.