Books: Saul Bellow Blooms Again

With a baby daughter and a new novel, the laureate is thriving

At 84, Nobel laureate Saul Bellow seems, as one of his comically understating fictional characters might put it, to be doing O.K. He is, for openers, the proud father of a baby daughter, Naomi-Rose, born Dec. 23 last year to Janis Freedman, 41, the author's fifth wife. Seated in his office at Boston University and sporting a jaunty blue paisley ascot and rumpled suit, Bellow talks animatedly about the new arrival: "I think that she's much keener on entering into some connection with her parents than the boys were. [Bellow has three grown sons, the eldest 56, from previous marriages.] She...

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