Terry Gross interviewed Philip Roth this week about his new book, Exit Ghost. Roth has said the book is the last to chronicle the adventures of Nathan Zuckerman.

Now, we weren’t Psyche majors in college and we know Roth likes to keep his personal life on the DL, but it seems pretty clear that Nathan Zuckerman is Philip Roth’s stand in.

So this exchange seemed a bit, well, awkward:

TG: Zuckerman’s strategy to endure is to completely isolate himself … Is that a reasonable strategy, the strategy of complete isolation?

PR: For him.
TG: I kind of feel like it’s hurting him as a writer too, to be that isolated because there’s no new input.

PR: We don’t know anything about his writing. Roth hasn’t told us anything about his writing.

It’s just like an NPR host to criticize a Pulitzer Prize winning writer via his fictional alter ego.