The Breast

By Philip Roth

"Terrific...inventive and sane and very funny. The trick which is the heart of the book is brilliant...and rich with meaning." -- New York Times Book Review

"Hilarious, serious, visionary, logical, sexual-philosophical; the ending amazes." --Cynthia Ozick

In Philip Roth's brilliant take on The Metamorphosis, Professor David Kepesh wakes up one morning to find that he has been transformed--into a 155-pound breast.

Like a latter-day Gregor Samsa, Professor David Kepesh wakes up one morning to find that he has been transformed. But where Kafka's protagonist turned into a giant beetle, the narrator of Philip Roth's richly conceived fantasy has become a 155-pound female breast. What follows is a deliriously funny yet touching exploration of full implications of Kepesh's metamorphosis--a daring heretical book that brings us face to face with the intrinsic strangeness of sex and subjectivity.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0063499983
• ISBN13: 9780063499980
• Release Date: December 2026
• Publisher: Mariner Books Classics
• Length: 128 Pages