So long, Nathan Zuckerman. Philip Roth's fictional alter ego, a famous Jewish novelist featured in such novels as "The Ghost Writer" and the Pulitzer Prize-winning "American Pastoral," is set to appear for the last time in Roth's "Exit Ghost," coming out next fall.

"Houghton Mifflin is thrilled to be publishing Philip Roth's ninth and last Zuckerman novel ... 28 years after the publication of 'The Ghost Writer,' " Houghton Mifflin publisher Janet Silver said Thursday in a statement.

According to Houghton Mifflin, "Exit Ghost" is a "portrait of the artist as an old man."

"Bedeviled by the powers he's lost, fearful of losing the powers that remain — and that are vital to his vocation — Nathan Zuckerman returns to New York after 11 years of living as a solitary, reclusive writer in the rural hills of western Massachusetts," reads the statement. The book is "a moving study of obsession, forgetfulness, resignation, and ungratifiable desire."