John Updike

Professor John Updike

John Hoyer Updike

Ben Turnbull, a retired investment counselor living north of Boston in the year 2020, in a country decimated by a U.S.-China war, chronicles his life in his journals over the course of a year, finding his personal history merging into alternative identities throughout history and the future. 75,000 first printing. BOMC Main. Tour.

Toward the End of Time

Through four generations--from Clarence Wilmot, a lapsed minister-turned-encyclopedia salesman, in 1910, to the present day--one family pursues the American obsession with God and the unreal world of the motion picture. 75,000 first printing. BOMC Alt. Tour.

In the Beauty of the Lilies

Short stories about various people who must find their ways in the modern world.

Short Stories

The Music School

During an interview with a New York writer, seventy-nine-year-old artist Hope Chafetz describes her eventful life and her integral place in the saga of postwar American art, as the evolving relationship between the interviewer and subject subtly evolves in and out of the roles of mother and daughter, patient and therapist, prey and predator. 60,000 first printing.

Seek My Face

A new anthology of short fiction features twenty-two diverse tales that explore the magical fragility, memory, nostalgia, and translucent quality of life beyond middle age. 30,000 first printing. $35,000 ad/promo. BOMC Alt.

The Afterlife and Other Stories

Septuagenarian Jewish American writer Henry Bech confronts new challenges in his life, including a much-coveted Nobel Prize, an honor that stuns him

A Quasi-novel

Bech at Bay

New Englander Sarah Worth goes west to join a Hindu commune in Arizona. There she mingles with the other sannyasins (pilgrims) in the difficult attempt to subdue ego and achieve salvation and release from illusion.

A Novel

Ex-basketball player Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, now living in a Florida condominium, faces middle age, heart trouble, and a wife who has suddenly gone to work

Rabbit At Rest

Twelve short stories revisit the locales of the author's previous works of fiction and focus on a theme of love, an anthology that is complemented by a novella-length sequel, "Rabbit Remembered," to his Harry Angstrom series. 60,000 first printing.

Short Stories and a Sequel

Licks of Love

In the imaginary sub-Saharan state of Kush, its American-educated dictator, Ellellou resists the incursion of Western civilization's questionable advances, but Coke, Macdonald's, and women's lib will not be put off

The Coup

Parents lead children into peril, a man loves his wife's twin, and a woman must administer her father's death in this collection of short stories exploring the theme of trust, both betrayed and fulfilled

Trust Me

A collection of essays and criticism discusses odd jobs, the female body, the Fourth of July, the Gospel of Matthew, Shaw, Anderson, Hemingway, Roth, Murdoch, Eco, Garcia Marquez, and others

Professor John Updike

Books

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