'The Anatomy Lesson is a ferocious; heartfelt book - lavish with laughs and flamboyant inventions' John Updike With his fortieth birthday receding into the distance; along with his hairline and his most successful novel; the writer Nathan Zuckerman comes down with a mysterious affliction - pure pain; beginning in his neck and shoulders; invading his torso; and taking possession of his spirit. Zuckerman; whose work was his life; finds himself physically unable to write a line. He treks from one doctor to another; but none can find a cause for the pain and nobody can assuage it. Could it be; he wonders to himself; that the cause of the pain is nothing less than the books he has written? As he grapples with this possibility; he tries an onslaught of painkillers; then vodka; and finally marijuana. He contemplates threatening the pain with suicide; attempting to scare it out of his system. He toys with the prospect of a dramatic career change. What will it take for the pain to finally leave him alone?