Undying a Novel

"On the eve of the 2004 election, cancer interrupts the life of professor Alan Meister, and Undying is Meisters journal, in which he mixes reflections on health, illness, and Nietzsche with straightforward narration. Meister is a Rothian character. Overeducated, graying, and married to a former graduate student, he has traded the pursuit of social change for fantasies about cheating on his wife. His illness prompts his prodigal daughter to return for an extended visit, and she comes bearing shocks."@en
"Professor Alan Meister is writing a book on Friedrich Nietzche's philosophy while coping with his own diagnosis and treatment for lymphoma. As the two projects overlap, he begins imagining Nietzsche as a companion."
"November 2004: George W. Bush is re-elected. Five days later, Alan Meister, a New York professor of philosophy, is diagnosed with lymphoma--not that he can prove the two are connected. While coping with the rigors of chemotherapy, Alan begins work on a long-postponed book titled The Health of a Sick Man, arguing that the core of Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophical thought was a decades-long attempt to cope with his lifelong incapacities--his blinding headaches, upset stomach, weak vision, and all-around frailty, not least his vexed relations with women. As Alan's treatment proceeds, he finds re."@en