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Zuckerman has always had a touch, often with good reason, of the paranoiac about him, and ostensibly, his leaving the city that meant so much to him was because of death threats, but in many ways, it was also an escape from his past - a past full of ghosts. After an 11-year self-imposed exile, he goes to seek treatment in New York City. "Exit Ghost" begins on the eve of the presidential election in 2004, with a 71-year-old Zuckerman, now incontinent from prostate surgery, leaving his reclusive existence in the Berkshire Mountains. This, as we shall learn in "Exit Ghost," is an important distinction. Apart from Alexander Portnoy and possibly David Kepesh, Zuckerman is Roth's greatest creation Zuckerman is Roth's ghost, his shadow, not his alter ego, as often claimed by critics and generally denied by the author himself. We have seen Zuckerman as an aspiring writer, a best-selling success, a medical school student, a tourist in Eastern Europe and more recently as the confessor for others. After eight other books, written over a period of almost 30 years, Philip Roth has decided to end the saga of his most famous character. The world according to Nathan Zuckerman (and his many ghosts) is coming to an end. By Philip Roth HOUGHTON MIFFLIN 292 PAGES $26