What to make of the "Philip Roth" section of Halliday's Asymmetry

Finished reading the first section, Folly, in Lisa Halliday's debut novel, Asymmetry, and though I enjoyed reading this section or long story or short novel I feel at the end just as I did at the outset: I'm interested in a gossipy way, about which I feel somewhat ashamed but there it is, in learning about the private life of the great author Philip Roth. But if it weren't for the Roth connection, what's there to say about these 120 or so pp of Halliday's novel? At the end, the Roth character, Ezra Blazer, is in a hospital bed having suffered though one of his many ailments and maladies, and the young woman assistant book editor and "Gryphon" press (apparently, FSG?) is by his side, tending to his various needs. We see at the end of this section pretty much what we knew from the outset: He's much too old for her, all of his cultural references are way out of her sphere (though she gamely tries to enjoy his music - and makes no attempt to bring her taste in music or reading to his attention - and though she spends a lot of time following the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry - far too much time for even this reader), he needs a nurse or caretaker more than he needs a nubile girlfriend. So what's she doing w/ him, after all? We learn virtually nothing about her life: little about her family, nothing about her friends. She gives a little nod of agreement when "Ezra" asks what she does w/ all her spare time and posits that maybe she's trying to write. So yes like about 99.9 percent of the editorial assistants in NYC she's an aspiring writer, and "Ezra" has bestowed on her some fecund material for her first novel (which we're reading), but in my view it doesn't amount to much more than ginned up Page 6 or US Weekly material (Writers: They're just like us!). Yet I'm withholding judgement on the novel as a whole; apparently the 2nd section is an entirely new narrative, and, from the title of the work, I'm guessing that the two narratives are part of a grander design and not 2 long stories bound together in a volume.