Literary Figures: Novelists

Ann Fessler talks about her new book, The Girls Who Went Away. Using her own story of adoption as a basis for her book, Fessler tells the story of over a million women who surrendered children for adoption prior to legalized abortion. Fessler is a photography professor at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Philip Roth's new novel is about a 71-year-old multi-divorced, successful advertising man who is facing his physical deterioration and approaching death — without the aid of religion or philosophy. One reviewer called Everyman a "swift, brutal novel about a heartbreakingly ordinary subject."

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Author Stephen McCauley first made a splash with The Object of My Affection, the novel that was later made into a movie starring Jennifer Aniston. His new novel, Alternatives to Sex, concerns a a gay fortysomething realtor with an addiction to cruising the Internet in pursuit of casual sex.

The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, forced many Americans to reshape their lives. For New Yorkers whose plans and priorities were cast loose, the shocking losses were followed by a challenge: what to do next. That dilemma is at the heart of Jay McInerney's The Good Life.

As a former counterterrorism official in the Clinton and Bush administrations, Richard A. Clarke often had to imagine worst-case scenarios. His first novel — a thriller — does just that: set five years in the future, it envisions the United States on the verge of another war in the Middle East.

Editor and writer Walter Kirn's latest novel, Mission to America, is about a fictional quasi-religious group, the Aboriginal Fulfilled Apostles, seeking new converts to help them survive. The topic is one Kirn has experience with: When he was 12, Kirn's family became Mormons.

Best-selling author Zadie Smith's new book, On Beauty, follows the lives of two mixed-race families in a fictional New England college town. Smith's previous work includes the novel White Teeth.

Joan Didion's memoir The Year of Magical Thinking is about grieving for her husband, fellow writer John Gregory Dunne. He died suddenly at the end of 2003, while their daughter was hospitalized with pneumonia.

Mystery writer Ruth Rendell is known both for her more traditional Chief Inspector Reginald Wexford mysteries and for dark psychological thrillers. Her new book, 13 Steps Down, falls into the latter category.

Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Philip Roth has been a favorite of readers since his memoir Goodbye, Columbus emerged to help define the culture of postwar America. Now the Library of America is releasing Roth's books — a rare step for a living author.