The remainder of the book, which ends with his death, looks mournfully back on episodes from his life, including his childhood, where he and his older brother, Howie, worked in his father's shop, Everyman's Jewelry Store.

Having divorced her as well, he has moved in his old age to a retirement community at the New Jersey shore, where he lives alone and attempts to paint, having passed up a career as an artist early in his life to work in advertising in order to support himself and his family.

The book traces the protagonist's feelings as he gets increasingly old and sick, and his reflections of his own past, which has included his share of misdeeds and mistakes, as he ponders his impending death.

"[2] The London Book of Reviews was more measured recognizing "Roth’s writing in the novels of the past decade has been distinguished by a powerfully propulsive energy.

Specifically of Everyman though, they recognize "that none of the suffering and death in it is singular enough to move us, perhaps because Roth has wanted, out of respect for his subject-matter, to lay art and laughter to one side.