Updike

'A brilliant biography. . . . The joys are . . . discovering the autobiographical content of the . . . details that populate Updike's vast fictional universe.' -Orhan Pamuk, The New York Times Book ReviewAdam Begley offers an illuminating portrait of John Updike, Pulitzer prize-winning 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 'middleness with all its grits, bumps and anonymities.'Updike explores the writer's beloved home turf of Berks County, Pennsylvania; his escape to Harvard; his 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 Beverly Farms, Massachusetts, where he remained until his death in 2009. Drawing from in-depth research as well as interviews with the writer's colleagues, friends, and family, Begley explores how Updike's fiction was shaped by his tumultuous personal life-including his enduring religious faith, his two marriages, and his first-hand experience of the 'adulterous society' he was credited with exposing in the bestselling Couples.With a sharp critical sensibility, Begley probes Updike's best-loved works-from Pigeon Feathers to The Witches of Eastwick to the Rabbit tetralogy-and reveals a surprising and deeply complex character fraught with contradictions. Updike offers an admiring yet balanced look at one of American literature's most treasured authors.'A superb achievement. . . . as rewarding as Updike's best fiction.' -Scott Stossel, The Boston Globe'A monumental treatment of a towering American writer.' -The New York Observer'A highly literate illumination of a supremely literate human being.' -Louis Menand, The New Yorker