A Life In Letters

By (author) Updike, John
Description:

The arc of literary giant John Updike''s life emerges in these luminous daily letters to family, friends, editors, and lovers — a remarkable outpouring over six decades, from his earliest consciousness as a writer to his final days

In the words of his contemporary, Philip Roth, John Updike was ‘Our time’s greatest man of letters – as brilliant a literary critic and essayist as he was a novelist and short-story writer’.

Over the course of his long and immensely productive career, he also proved himself a brilliant correspondent, his letters filled with comic observations, opinions and personal news, told in his characteristically elegant and exquisitely fluid style.

In this sparkling selection of his letters, edited by James Schiff, we can see Updike in real time, capturing every stage of his unspooling life, from Pennsylvania farm boy to Pulitzer prizewinner; and from young father negotiating his first book contract to the bestselling writer he became, following the international success of his novels Couples and the ‘Rabbit ‘sequence.

Here are letters to family, friends, editors and lovers, a remarkable outpouring over six decades – including, most movingly perhaps, the letters of his final year bidding farewell to children, colleagues and friends.

Taken together, these missives make a page-turning ‘life in letters’ like no other – an intimate testament to one of the greatest of all American writers.

‘Nobody has a better understanding of the capriciousness of the human heart than John Updike’ Daily Telegraph

‘He was the ideal son of a platonic union between John Cheever and J.D. Salinger, with Nabokov attending the christening as fairy godfather’ James Wood

‘John Updike mapped our desires, our wishes, our wise and unwise dreams, our uncertainties, with such elegant precision and for so many years’ The Times

Review quote:
One of the greatest American writers of the 20th century . . . Brilliant, riveting and essential for anyone remotely interested in Updike; shockingly salacious enough to enthral the remotely curious; and cleverly annotated for easy reading . . . The best letters are those to his wives in the 1970s, where you realise that Updike’s greatness as a writer lies not in his much-lauded descriptive powers, nor in his ability to weave arcane areas of computer science or theology into his fiction, but in his ruthlessly honest psychological acuity, as he lays himself bare — right down to admitting he likes to beat his wife’s lover at golf
Review quote:
A profoundly poignant portrait, an invaluable historical document, and a timely reflection on the eternal tensions between societal conventions and free speech . . . The great writer has been branded a misogynist and narcissist. Yet as his letters prove, his writing remains uncannily evocative
Review quote:
By turns fascinating, embarrassing, and even moving, the letters reveal that Updike’s ceaseless coupling was never quite about lust at all. It was about faith — about locating meaning amid the mundanities of the modern world
Review quote:
Missives from the mountain. . . . A sprightly and revealing collection by the writer who captured postwar American life, love, and loss
Biographical note:

John Updike was born in 1932 in Shillington, Pennsylvania. He is the author of over fifty books, including The Poorhouse Fair; the Rabbit series (Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit Is Rich; Rabbit At Rest); Marry Me; The Witches of Eastwick, which was made into a major feature film; Memories of the Ford Administration; Brazil; In the Beauty of the Lilies; Toward the End of Time; Gertrude and Claudius; and Seek My Face. He has written a number of col