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Sat 05 May 2007PaperbacksPhilip RothEverymanVintage, £6.99Taking his title from the line of 15th-century morality plays and using the funeral of his nameless protagonist as his reference point, Philip Roth examines the man's life and gradual descent into the grave via a number of prosaic hospital visits.Here is a character seemingly as plain as Roth has ever imagined, a man who even describes himself as "square". This is one writer, however, who does not do "square". His protagonist has been a success in his professional career, cavorting around the Caribbean with his young lover, despised by his two sons, before ending up "unbearably alone" in a sterile retirement home. Distinctly lacking in faith, this tight, beautifully structured novel prods at life's finiteness and does so with all the style you would expect from an American master. Life is too much, too chaotic, while the real horror of death, Roth is saying, is its banality. -  Tom Cooney