John Updike

American novelist, short-story writer, and poet

• Born: March 18, 1932
• Birthplace: Reading, Pennsylvania
• Died: January 27, 2009
• Place of death: Danvers, Massachusetts

Biography

John Hoyer Updike was widely acclaimed as one of the most accomplished stylists and prolific writers of his generation; his fiction represents a penetrating chronicle of the changing morals and manners of American society. He was born in Shillington, Pennsylvania, on March 18, 1932, the only child of Wesley and Linda Grace Hoyer Updike. His father was a mathematics teacher at the high school and supported the family in lean times, first in the old parental home in Shillington, and later on a farm in Plowville, ten miles outside Shillington. A number of short stories, such as “Flight,” and the novels The Centaur and Of the Farm draw upon this experience. After attending schools in Shillington, Updike went to Harvard University in 1950 on a full scholarship, majoring in English. He was editor of the Harvard Lampoon and graduated in 1954 with highest honors. In 1953 he married Mary Pennington, the daughter of a Unitarian minister and a Radcliffe student; they were to have four children.

In 1954 Updike sold the first of many stories to The New Yorker. After a year in Oxford, England, where Updike studied at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, he returned to the United States to a job as a staff writer with The New Yorker, for which he wrote the “Talk of the Town” column. In April 1957, fearing the city scene would inhibit his writing, Updike and his family left New York for Ipswich, Massachusetts. He continued to sell stories to The New Yorker while working on longer fiction. His first book was a collection of verse, The Carpentered Hen, and Other Tame Creatures, published in 1958. The next year he published his first novel, The Poorhouse Fair, set in a retirement home. The novel received favorable reviews and won the Rosenthal Award. His first collection of short stories, The Same Door, also appeared in 1959. During this time Updike was active in Ipswich community life and attended the Congregational church—a setting depicted in a number of works. In 1974 the Updikes divorced. In 1977 Updike remarried to Martha Bernhard. He and Martha remained married until his death in 2009.

During this same period—the late 1950s and early 1960s—Updike faced a crisis of faith prompted by his consciousness of death’s inevitability. The works of such writers as Søren Kierkegaard and, especially, Karl Barth, the Swiss neoorthodox theologian, helped Updike come to grips with this fear and to find a basis for faith. Many of Updike’s works explore theological and religious issues. In a real sense, Updike became a kind of late twentieth century Nathaniel Hawthorne; his works, like Hawthorne’s, are saturated with religious and theological concerns. In fact, three of his novels, A Month of Sundays, Roger’s Version, and S., form an updated version of Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (1850).

Updike’s work published during the 1960s established him as one of America’s important serious writers. In 1960 he published Rabbit, Run, the first in a series of novels about a middle-class man and his family set in a small city in Pennsylvania. He returned to this character at intervals of a decade with Rabbit Redux, Rabbit Is Rich (which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981), Rabbit at Rest, and the novella Rabbit Remembered. Each of these novels deals seriously with a man interacting with his changing culture, adapting but not fully capitulating to it, seeking always for something certain, if not transcendent. In 1962 Updike’s second story collection, Pigeon Feathers, and Other Stories, appeared, and in 1963, another collection of verse, Telephone Poles, and Other Poems, was published. His novel The Centaur, also published in 1963, earned Updike the National Book Award and election to the National Institute of Arts and Letters, making Updike the youngest writer ever to be so elected. In 1966 the collection of stories The Music School appeared.

In 1964 and 1965 Updike traveled to Eastern Europe as part of a cultural exchange program. A number of works reflect that experience, in particular his collection Bech. In 1973 Updike traveled, under State Department auspices, to Africa; his novel The Coup reflects that journey. With three collections of essays and reviews—Assorted Prose, Picked-Up Pieces, and Hugging the Shore—Updike showed himself to be an excellent literary critic and cultural commentator as well as a gifted writer of fiction.

Updike’s mature fiction was concerned with the fate of eros in the upper-middle-class suburbs of the eastern United States. His fiction provides a vivid chronicle of the sexual mores and strained and broken marriages of contemporary America. Most of his protagonists are enmeshed in the compromises of modern life, in the horizontal, while yet yearning for the transcendent, the recovery of the vertical dimension. For many of his characters, sexual ecstasy, even with its attendant disappointments, replaces the passions of faith. In such works as Couples—a best seller that received favorable treatment in Time and Life magazines and garnered Updike a large sum for the film rights—the Rabbit books, Marry Me, and the story collections Museums and Women and Problems, and Other Stories, Updike focused on marriage and its discontents, especially the various stages of marital disintegration. If innocence, real or imagined, is irrecoverable in Updike’s fiction, if his characters often seem engulfed by moral squalor, they yet possess a lively and admirable energy, a spiritual striving, and a vital resistance to entropy that points to something quite other than defeat. Inseparable from the energy of his characters’ striving is the astonishing variety and richness of Updike’s narratives, reflecting a conviction that the vocation of writing, as with Henry James, constitutes a necessary assault upon the precincts of death. Thus, in both thematic seriousness and narrative range, Updike produced a body of writings of the highest order.

Author Works

Long Fiction

The Poorhouse Fair, 1959

Rabbit, Run, 1960

The Centaur, 1963

Of the Farm, 1965

Couples, 1968

Bech: A Book, 1970

Rabbit Redux, 1971

A Month of Sundays, 1975

Marry Me: A Romance, 1976

The Coup, 1978

Rabbit Is Rich, 1981

The Witches of Eastwick, 1984

Roger’s Version, 1986

S., 1988

Rabbit at Rest, 1990

Memories of the Ford Administration, 1992

Brazil, 1994

In the Beauty of the Lilies, 1996

Toward the End of Time, 1997

Bech at Bay: A Quasi-Novel, 1998

Gertrude and Claudius, 2000

Seek My Face, 2002

Villages, 2004

Terrorist, 2006

The Widows of Eastwick, 2008

Short Fiction

The Same Door, 1959

Pigeon Feathers, and Other Stories, 1962

Olinger Stories: A Selection, 1964

The Music School, 1966

Museums and Women, and Other Stories, 1972

Problems, and Other Stories, 1979

Three Illuminations in the Life of an American Author, 1979

Too Far to Go: The Maples Stories, 1979

The Chaste Planet, 1980

Bech Is Back, 1982

The Beloved, 1982

Trust Me, 1987

Brother Grasshopper, 1990 (limited edition)

The Afterlife, and Other Stories, 1994

Licks of Love: Short Stories and a Sequel, “Rabbit Remembered,” 2000

The Complete Henry Bech: Twenty Stories, 2001

The Early Stories: 1953–1975, 2003

Three Trips, 2003

My Father's Tears and Other Stories, 2009

The Maples Stories, 2009

The Collected Stories, 2013

Drama

Three Texts from Early Ipswich: A Pageant, pb. 1968

Buchanan Dying, pb. 1974

Poetry

The Carpentered Hen, and Other Tame Creatures, 1958

Telephone Poles, and Other Poems, 1963

Dog’s Death, 1965

Verse, 1965

The Angels, 1968

Bath After Sailing, 1968

Midpoint, and Other Poems, 1969

Seventy Poems, 1972

Six Poems, 1973

Cunts (Upon Receiving the Swingers Life Club Membership Solicitation), 1974

Query, 1974

Tossing and Turning, 1977

Sixteen Sonnets, 1979

Five Poems, 1980

Jester’s Dozen, 1984

Facing Nature, 1985

Mites, and Other Poems in Miniature, 1990

A Beautiful Alphabet of Friendly Objects, 1995

Americana, and Other Poems, 2001

Endpoint and Other Poems, 2009

Nonfiction

Assorted Prose, 1965

Picked-Up Pieces, 1975

Hugging the Shore: Essays and Criticism, 1983

Just Looking: Essays on Art, 1989

Self-Consciousness: Memoirs, 1989

Odd Jobs: Essays and Criticism, 1991

Golf Dreams: Writings on Golf, 1996

More Matter: Essays and Criticism, 1999

Still Looking: Essays on American Art, 2005

In Love with a Wanton: Essays on Golf, 2005

Due Considerations: Essays and Criticism, 2007

Higher Gossip, 2011

Always Looking: Essays on Art, 2012

Edited Text

The Best American Short Stories of the Century, 2000

The Binghamton Poems, 2009

Bibliography

Boswell, Marshall. John Updike’s Rabbit Tetralogy: Mastered Irony in Motion. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2001. A study of Harry Angstrom’s literary journey through life.

Broer, Lawrence R., ed. Rabbit Tales: Poetry and Politics in John Updike’s Rabbit Novels. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1998. Twelve essays that demonstrate that Updike’s Rabbit novels are a carefully crafted fabric of changing hues and textures, of social realism and something of grandeur. Includes bibliographical references and index.

De Bellis, Jack, ed. John Updike: The Critical Responses to the “Rabbit” Saga. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2005. A collection of thirty-four scholarly essays examining Updike’s “Rabbit” novels.

Detweiler, Robert. John Updike. Rev. ed. Boston: Twayne, 1984. An excellent introductory survey of Updike’s work through 1983. Contains a chronology, a biographical sketch, analysis of the fiction and its sources, a select bibliography, and an index.

Donahue, Peter. “Pouring Drinks and Getting Drunk: The Social and Personal Implications of Drinking in John Updike’s ‘Too Far to Go.’” Studies in Short Fiction 33 (Summer, 1996): 361-367. Argues that drinking in the stories moves from a conventional social pastime to an extension of the couple’s private discord, significantly changing how they view and interact with each other; their drinking habits expose the degree to which alcohol use is connected to the specific gender roles and family dynamics of the middle-class suburban world the Maples occupy.

Greiner, Donald J. The Other John Updike: Poems, Short Stories, Prose, Play. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1981. While devoting a considerable amount of space to other critics, Greiner, who has written three books about Updike, here traces Updike’s artistic development in his writing that both parallels and extends the themes of the novels.

Hunt, George W. John Updike and the Three Secret Things: Sex, Religion, and Art. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1980. An accurate and perceptive (if a bit scholarly in style) examination of the evolution of Updike’s thematic focus. Hunt combines psychoanalytical (Jungian), New Critical, and theological approaches in his thesis that Updike’s primary concern changed in emphasis during his career.

Luscher, Robert M. John Updike: A Study of the Short Fiction. New York: Twayne, 1993. An introduction to Updike’s short fiction, dealing with his lyrical technique, his experimentation with narrative structure, his use of the short-story cycle convention, and the relationship between his short fiction and his novels. Includes Updike’s comments on his short fiction and previously published critical essays representing a variety of critical approaches.

Macnaughton, William R., ed. Critical Essays on John Updike. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982. A comprehensive, eclectic collection, including essays by writers such as Alfred Kazin, Anthony Burgess, and Joyce Carol Oates, who provide reviews, and various Updike experts who have written original essays. Contains a survey of bibliographies and an assessment of criticism and scholarship.

Miller, D. Quentin. John Updike and the Cold War: Drawing the Iron Curtain. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2001. Studies the influence of Cold War society and politics in forming Updike’s worldview.

Newman, Judie. John Updike. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988. A part of the Modern Novelists series, Newman covers the long fiction with facility and insight and offers a solid foundation for understanding Updike’s primary concerns throughout his writing. Contains a good, comprehensive introduction and a judicious bibliography.

O’Connell, Mary. Updike and the Patriarchal Dilemma: Masculinity in the Rabbit Novels. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1996. Examines the themes of men, masculinity, and patriarchy in Updike’s Rabbit series. Includes an index and bibliography.

Pinsker, Sanford. “The Art of Fiction: A Conversation with John Updike.” The Sewanee Review 104 (Summer, 1996): 423-433. Updike discusses the visual artists who have inspired him, how his academic experiences helped to shape his writing, and how he regards criticism of his work.

Plath, James. "Shaping Graces: John Updike, Middleness, and the American Experience." Critical Insights: John Updike, edited by Bernard F. Rodgers Jr., 2011, pp. 49-64. Literary Reference Center Plus, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lkh&AN=70884173&site=lrc-plus. Accessed 29 Apr. 2017. This essay provides a brief biography of Updike and explores the influence of the sexual revolution and other social changes during his life on his work and outlook.

Pritchard, William H. Updike: America’s Man of Letters. South Royalton, Vt.: Steerforth Press, 2000. A biography of the novelist, who Pritchard sees as the heir to such American storytellers as William Dean Howells and Henry James, alone in a sea of metafiction.

Rogers, Michael. “The Gospel of the Book: LJ Talks to John Updike.” Library Journal 124, no. 3 (February 15, 1999): 114-116. Updike expounds on books, contemporary writers, and the state of publishing at the end of the twentieth century.

Schiff, James A. John Updike Revisited. New York: Twayne, 1998. A general introduction surveying all of Updike’s work but focusing on his fiction in the late 1990’s. The chapter on the short story is relatively brief, with short analyses of such stories as “A & P” and “Separating.”

Schiff, James A. Updike’s Version: Rewriting “The Scarlet Letter.” Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1992. Schiff explores the influence of Hawthorne’s novel on Updike’s oeuvre. Contains an index and bibliography.

Tallent, Elizabeth. Married Men and Magic Tricks: John Updike’s Erotic Heroes. Berkeley, Calif.: Creative Arts, 1982. Offers, in Judie Newman’s words, “a ground-breaking exploration of the erotic dimensions of selected works.” A long-needed analysis that includes a feminist perspective missing from much previous Updike criticism.

Trachtenberg, Stanley, ed. New Essays on “Rabbit, Run.” Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Essays in this collection address Updike’s notable novel and such themes as middle-class men in literature. With bibliographical references.