Updike

Updike is Adam Begley& 8217;s masterful much-anticipated biography of one of the most celebrated figures in American literature: Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Updike& 8212;a candid intimate and richly detailed look at his life and work. In this magisterial biography Adam Begley offers an illuminating portrait of John Updike the acclaimed novelist poet short-story writer and critic who saw himself as a literary spy in small-town and suburban America who dedicated himself to the task of transcribing & 8220;middleness with all its grits bumps and anonymities. & 8221; Updike explores the stages of the writer& 8217;s pilgrim& 8217;s progress: his beloved home turf of Berks County Pennsylvania; his escape to Harvard; his brief busy working life as the golden boy at The New Yorker; his family years in suburban Ipswich Massachusetts; his extensive travel abroad; and his retreat to another Massachusetts town Beverly Farms where he remained until his death in 2009. Drawing from in-depth research as well as interviews with the writer& 8217;s colleagues friends and family Begley explores how Updike& 8217;s fiction was shaped by his tumultuous personal life& 8212;including his enduring religious faith his two marriages and his first-hand experience of the & 8220;adulterous society& 8221; he was credited with exposing in the bestselling Couples. With a sharp critical sensibility that lends depth and originality to his analysis Begley probes Updike& 8217;s best-loved works& 8212;from Pigeon Feathers to The Witches of Eastwick to the Rabbit tetralogy& 8212;and reveals a surprising and deeply complex character fraught with contradictions: a kind man with a vicious wit a gregarious charmer who was ruthlessly competitive a private person compelled to spill his secrets on the printed page. Updike offers an admiring yet balanced look at this national treasure a master whose writing continues to resonate like no one else& 8217;s. . Language: English