Cancer has taken the great John Updike, 76. My first Updike book was Couples (’68), which I read for the adulterous sex. It didn’t disappoint. Suburban adultery became Updike’s handle around that time. (“A subject which,” he once wrote, “if I have not exhausted, has exhausted me.”) I found the Rabbit books vaguely depressing. I read half of Beck: A Book and ignored the other two. Updike’s Witches of Eastwick was much more satisfying than the film. But Couples was the shit.


John Updike
January 27, 2009by Jeffrey Wells15 Comments