In the history of the novel, much of the focus has been centered on point of view, or, as it is sometimes referred to, 'the person through whose eyes the story is being told, ' moving from omniscient author to one or more of the characters in the book and, for the most part, gaining closeness at the expense of perspective. Goodbye, Philip Roth is an attempt to offer another approach by presenting the book from the reader's point of view (a character outside the book, so to speak). In it, the reader, haunted by Roth's novels, finds himself involved with author and book in ways he has not previously imagined.