John Updike

The protagonist of John Updike's Rabbit, Run (1960), ten years after the hectic events described in Rabbit Redux (1971), has come to enjoy considerable prosperity as Chief Sales Representative of Springer Motors, a Toyota agency in Brewer, Pennsylvania. The time is 1979: Skylab is falling, gas lines are lengthening, the President collapses while running in a marathon, and double-digit inflation coincides with a deflation of national confidence. Nevertheless,...

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • One of the most gifted American writers of the twentieth century brings back ex-basketball player Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, the late middle-aged hero of Rabbit, Run, who has acquired heart trouble, a Florida condo, and a second grandchild, and is looking for reasons to live. 

“Brilliant . . . the best novel about America to come out of America for a very, very long time.”—The...

Alexandra, Jane, and Sukie ply their individual witcheries in contemporary Eastwick, Rhode Island, and are themselves bewitched by a dark, wealthy, decadent stranger. Toward the end of the Vietnam era, in a snug little Rhode Island seacoast town, wonderful powers have descended upon Alexandra, Jane, and Sukie, bewitching divorcées with sudden access to all that is female, fecund, and mysterious. Alexandra, a sculptor, summons thunderstorms; Jane,...

A riveting novel that takes place in one day about an elderly painter and the New Yorker interviewing her—from one of the most gifted American writers of the twentieth century and the author of the acclaimed Rabbit series. • “A brief novel of deep feeling.”—Time

On a day that contains much conversation and some rain, the seventy-eight-year-old painter Hope Chafetz, who in the course of her eventful...

Ahmad, who feels his faith is threatened by the hedonistic society around him, gets involved in a plot, with reverberations that rouse the Department of Homeland Security.

John Updike's seventeenth novel begins in 1910, and traces God's relation to four generations of an American family, beginning with Clarence Wilmot, a Presbyterian clergyman in Paterson, New Jersey. He loses his faith, and becomes an encyclopedia salesman and a motion-picture addict. The remainder of Clarence's family moves to the small town of Basingstoke, Delaware, where his cautious son, Teddy, becomes a mailman. Faithless himself, Teddy marries...

Rabbit is Rich: "Harry Angstrom, now middle aged and the chief sales representative of a Toyota dealership, attempts to cope with such problems as inflation, governmental ineffectiveness, the return of his prodigal son, and a chance encounter with an old girlfriend." Rabbit at Rest: "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 ."

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.