While it seems like just yesterday that Philip Roth's slim novella EVERYMAN was released, the increasingly prolific writer has another ace up his sleeve. The New York Times reports that EXIT GHOST, to be published in October 2007, will be the ninth and last centered on his protagonist and alter ego Nathan Zuckerman. Houghton Mifflin publisher Janet Silver said that it will be a portrait of Zuckerman as an old man returning to New York after living more than a decade in the rural isolation of western Massachusetts.

The news comes just as the Library of America releases its latest volume of Roth's earlier works from 1973 to 1977 and reiterates its plans to publish the eighth and final installment in 2013 - the author's 80th birthday. By our (extremely faulty) math, that means THE EXIT GHOST is either the first or middle entry of volume eight, which means that this may well not be the last book Roth writes...