The very person of the author, his/her life, emotional states, mental and physical vicissitudes etc. seem not important for the reader to know or analyze in the context of the book. On the other hand, the author has a more or less conscious message and this message is something the reader is to receive and interprete. The literary researcher may not analyze the writer's biography but is obliged to study his/her message. Therefore, the hackneyed school question "What did the author mean?" still makes sense. Certainly, the reader has the right to do with the text whatever he/she likes, but without an attempt to decipher the author's message, no dialogue between these two parties would occur and without the dialogue the book is just like an artificial sexual stimulator which serves the selfish reader to satisfy him/herself. Without any interaction between the author and the reader, the act of reading is missing something really important... 

And now Philip Roth who, while writing, doesn't think about his readers, as well as he doesn't expect his readers to think about him writing :)