The Counterlife is about people enacting their dreams of renewal and escape some of them going so far as to risk their lives to alter seemingly irreversible destinies Wherever they may find themselves the characters of The Counterlife are tempted unceasingly by the prospect of an alternative existence that can reverse their fate Illuminating these lives in transition and guiding us through the books evocative landscapes familiar and foreign is the mind of the novelist Nathan Zuckerman His is the sceptical enveloping intelligence that calculates the price thats paid in the struggle to change personal fortune and reshape history whether in a dentists office in suburban New Jersey or in a tradition-bound English Village in Gloucestershire or in a church in Londons West End or in a tiny desert settlement in Israels occupied West Bank
