Couples by John Updike

First published: 1968

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Impressionistic realism

Time of plot: 1962-1964

Locale: Tarbox, Massachusetts

Principal characters

• Piet Hanema, a builder
• Angela Hanema, his wife
• Freddy Thorne, a dentist
• Georgene Thorne, Freddy’s wife and Piet’s mistress
• Foxy and Ken Whitman, newcomers to Tarbox
• Seven other Tarbox couples,

The Story:

As Piet and Angela Hanema undress for the nightthey discuss the party they have just attended for the Whitmans, a new couple that has just moved into town. Like most of the other couples in their social group, the Hanemas are middle class, are in their mid-thirties, have several children, and have settled in Tarbox—a quaint village quickly becoming a suburb on the South Shore of Boston—during the previous decade. Brought together by their youth, their recent arrival, their children, and their sense of themselves as representatives of the future rather than the past, these couples became a circle of friends.

Over time, the couples have developed their own social rituals. They gather formally and informally every weekend at planned dinner and cocktail parties, as well as at spontaneous get-togethers after swimming, going to the beach, or playing tennis, basketball, golf, or touch football. They play charades, impressions, and word games; have costume parties and dance to records by Doris Day, Chubby Checker, and Connie Francis; talk about the news, their houses, and their children; drink too much; gossip; and share and hide secrets. According to Freddy Thorne—their unofficial master of revels and resident cynical philosopher—they make a church of one another to hold back the night and replace their parents’ religious and political faiths, which most of them have lost.

In 1963, a “post-pill paradise” that seems to offer sex without consequences, adultery has begun to complicate the circle’s relationships. The previous year, Marcia little-Smith began an affair with Frank Appleby; when Janet Appleby and Harold little-Smith learned about it, they began one of their own. Before long, the couples stopped hiding their relationships from one another and became a foursome. Rumors circulated, Janet and Marcia shared confidences with their women friends, and the couples soon became known as the “Applesmiths.” Piet (pronounced “Pete”) is also having an affair—not his first—with Georgene Thorne, while Bea Guerin is making her own desire to be with him perfectly clear.

Foxy and Ken Whitman join the circle. Like most of the men, Ken is a professional, a Harvard-trained biochemist working in Boston; like most of the women, Foxy is attractive, smart, well-educated, and discontented. They have bought the old Robinson house on the shore. Foxy asks Piet to come out to the house to advise them on how to renovate it, and he agrees to take on the job. Foxy is two months pregnant, but they soon begin an affair that continues throughout the summer and her pregnancy. The relationship becomes an obsession for both of them and causes Piet to break off his relationship with Georgene.

While this affair is going on, the couples continue to gather and a variety of other long- and short-term affairs develop within the group. Ben Saltz loses his job, and his wife Irene becomes the first to go to work outside her home. Jon Ong learns he has cancer. Both Janet and Angela begin going to Boston for psychoanalysis. Foxy’s son is born in October, and in the weeks immediately following she and Piet do not see each other.

The Thornes plan a pre-Thanksgiving black-tie gala, but it turns out to be on the day that President Kennedy is shot. They decide to go ahead with the party anyway: They have bought all the liquor already, they reason, so it can be a kind of Irish wake. With the television on in the background, the evening begins with some sense of the moment, but it quickly becomes another drunken evening. It ends in farce when Piet, who finds Foxy in a bathroom and begins to make love to her, ends up jumping out of a window to avoid being discovered by Angela. Several days later, Piet goes to see Foxy and the baby and decides that, for him at least, the affair has run its course.

Piet begins seeing Bea Guerin just before Christmas. At a New Year’s Eve party, however, he promises to come to see Foxy the following week. They begin sleeping together again, and she becomes pregnant from that encounter. After some hesitation on Foxy’s part, they agree that she should have an abortion. Abortion is illegal, however, so they must find someone willing to perform the procedure. Freddy Thorne knows of a doctor in Boston who will do it, but he has also learned about Piet’s affair with Georgene; he refuses to help them unless Piet agrees to convince Angela to sleep with him in order to balance the scales. Piet indignantly refuses but eventually relents. Angela, surprisingly, agrees to sleep with Freddy.

Freddy takes Foxy to Boston for the abortion. Ken learns about the affair and confronts Foxy, who confesses everything, including the abortion. Ken calls the Hanemas and demands they come over to talk. Ken condemns them all, blames the Tarbox couples—including Angela—for the affair, and announces his intention to divorce Foxy. Piet immediately responds that if Ken divorces Foxy, he will “have to” marry her. When the Hanemas return home, Angela asks Piet to leave, and he soon moves into the unfinished attic of a building his firm has been renovating. The Whitmans separate and disappear from town, until Foxy sends Piet a note saying she is coming back to pick up some things from the house and would like to see him. They end up spending a weekend together in his attic bed. She then goes to St. Thomas with her baby to get a divorce.

The Salzes leave town, John Ong dies, and the remaining couples take up bridge. Angela gets a Mexican divorce, stays in Tarbox, and begins to teach at a girls’ school. Piet and Foxy marry and move to the Worcester area, where they meet others like themselves and become a couple.

Bibliography

De Bellis, Jack. A John Updike Encyclopedia. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2000. Includes individual entries on various aspects of the author’s life and work.

Detweiler, Robert. John Updike. 1972. Rev. ed. New York: Twayne, 1984. An excellent introduction to Updike’s concerns and style.

Greiner, Donald J. Adultery in the American Novel: Updike, James, and Hawthorne. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1985. Treats Couples and makes interesting connections with its predecessor texts by two of the most influential writers of American literature.

Olster, Stacey, ed. The Cambridge Companion to John Updike. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. A wide-ranging collection of essays on place, realism, religion, women, sex, race, history, popular culture, American myths, and stylistic experiment in Updike’s works.

Pritchard, William. Updike: America’s Man of Letters. South Royalton, Vt.: Steerforth Press, 2000. A sensitive, critically astute, and well-written study of Updike’s work that includes a detailed discussion of the genesis of Couples and its relationship to other works of the 1960’s in which Updike explored sex and adultery.

Tallent, Elizabeth. Married Men and Magic Tricks: John Updike’s Erotic Heroes. Berkeley, Calif.: Creative Arts, 1982. A study of sexuality in Updike’s novels and short stories by a fellow writer.

Updike, John. Conversations with John Updike. Edited by James Plath. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1994. A collection of interviews spanning Updike’s career that gathers some of his most important comments on Couples.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Picked-Up Pieces. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1975. Updike’s second collection of essays; includes “One Big Interview,” in which he discusses Couples, his other works, and his sense of his vocation.