Rabbit at Rest by John Updike
"Rabbit at Rest" is the concluding volume of John Updike's acclaimed Rabbit series, which chronicles the life of Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom. Set in 1989 during the twilight of the Reagan era, Rabbit is now fifty-five years old, grappling with personal and societal challenges that reflect broader American issues. The narrative begins in Florida, where Rabbit and his wife, Janice, split their time, but soon shifts back to Beaver, Pennsylvania, illustrating Rabbit's tumultuous life. As he faces health crises, including multiple heart attacks linked to his unhealthy lifestyle, Rabbit's relationships fray—especially with his estranged son, Nelson, who struggles with addiction and criminal behavior.
Through Rabbit's experiences, Updike explores themes of alienation, disillusionment, and the search for meaning against the backdrop of a changing America. Despite achieving financial success, Rabbit wrestles with profound dissatisfaction, feeling betrayed by unfulfilled dreams and the societal shifts around him. As he attempts to understand his life through history, he ultimately confronts his inability to grasp either his personal narrative or the complexities of the nation. "Rabbit at Rest" serves not only as a poignant end to Rabbit's journey but also as a reflection on the struggles of American identity and individual fulfillment.
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Subject Terms
Rabbit at Rest by John Updike
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1990
Type of work: Novel
The Work
Rabbit at Rest ends the saga Updike began in 1960 in Rabbit, Run but brilliantly continues the history that Updike has been writing through the four volumes. Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom is fifty-five when the novel opens in 1989, and as the Reagan years are winding down, so is Harry. He has ballooned to 230 pounds, and his addiction to junk food foreshadows his final demise. Harry’s problems are also the problems of America, for Updike is telling two complex histories here at once. In fact, readers see more of America in this final volume, for the first and last sections of the three-part novel take place in Florida, where Harry and his wife Janice live half the year in their condo.
Harry is followed from the first pages by a “sense of doom” that will trail him to his end. Harry and his son are estranged, and when Nelson arrives with his family for a Florida holiday, Harry suffers his first heart attack. Things are not much better when Harry returns to Beaver, Pennsylvania. He has had angioplasty (to avoid the bypass surgery his doctors recommend), but his recovery is slow and not aided by his eating habits or his family. Nelson has been stealing from the Toyota dealership he manages (and which Janice owns) to feed a cocaine habit, and when finally confronted he reluctantly enters drug rehabilitation, and Rabbit has to return to the showroom floor. The Japanese soon take away the Toyota agency, and when Janice starts working nights on a real estate license, the drifting Rabbit ends up sleeping with his daughter-in-law, Pru. Janice finds out about the episode, and Rabbit runs again—as he did in the first volume of the tetralogy—back to Florida.
Harry senses that he has “walked through my entire life in a daze,” and the self-assessment is not inaccurate. He feels betrayed by America, by his unfulfilled dreams. For all his financial success and sexual conquests, Harry is neither happy nor satisfied. Something is gnawing at this former high school basketball star. He reads history to understand his country at the same time he is trying to understand himself, but he fails in the end to penetrate either mystery. All Harry knows is that things in America have changed since he was a boy, and now they are both “drowning in debt.” When he suffers another heart attack—and in another sense of closure, in a pickup basketball game in Florida—readers feel both pity and terror. Updike has written a fitting final chapter for Rabbit Angstrom and another chapter in his continuing saga of American history.
Sources for Further Study
Los Angeles Times Book Review. October 7, 1990, p.3.
The New Criterion. IX, October, 1990, p.30.
New Statesman and Society. III, October 26, 1990, p.33.
The New York Review of Books. XXXVII, October 25, 1990, p.11.
The New York Times Book Review. XCV, September 30, 1990, p.1.
The New Yorker. LXVI, October 22, 1990, p.143.
Newsweek. CXV, October 1, 1990, p.66.
Publishers Weekly. CCXXXVII, August 10, 1990, p.433.
Time. CXXXVI, October 15, 1990, p.84.
The Times Literary Supplement. October 26, 1990, p.1145.
The Washington Post Book World. XX, September 30, 1990, p.1.