In 1956, young writer Nathan Zuckerman spends an evening at the Berkshires farmhouse of his literary idol E. I. Lonoff, where he becomes fixated on Amy Bellette, a mysterious young woman in the Lonoff household, and privately imagines she may secretly be Anne Frank, while witnessing Lonoff's wife Hope unravel and finally leave.
Books mentioned in The Ghost Writer (7)
Het Achterhuis (The Diary of a Young Girl) by Anne Frank: “she checked The New York Times Index and the Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature for "Frank, Anne"...and "Het Achterhuis"”
The Trial by Franz Kafka: “Do you remember the first sentence of The Trial?”
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky: “Felix can rise unto Heaven from the lobby and discuss your funny little mimeographed story with the author of The Brothers Karamazov”
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott: “Amy she got from an American book she had sobbed over as a child, Little Women”
The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss: “something boys and girls could read in bed at night along with the adventures of the Swiss Family Robinson”
The Middle Years by Henry James: “Sentiments ascribed to a story I did not know by Henry James called "The Middle Years"”
Macbeth by William Shakespeare: “1050, Shakespeare's Macbeth, where Duncan was murdered”
Books that mention The Ghost Writer (1)
The Facts by Philip Roth: “a question that was to turn up some twenty years later in The Ghost Writer, asked of Nathan Zuckerman”