Authors: Adam Begley
The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific entry, please use your e-book reader’s search tools.
The following abbreviations appear in the endnotes:
A
The Afterlife and Other Stories
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994.
AAK Alfred A. Knopf
AD André Deutsch.
Am
Americana and Other Poems
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001.
AP
Assorted Prose
. Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Premier, 1969.
BL
In the Beauty of the Lilies
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996.
BookTV
“In Depth with John Updike.”
BookTV
. C-SPAN2, December 4, 2005.
C
The Centaur
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963.
CB
The Complete Henry Bech
. New York: Everyman’s Library, 2001.
CC Cass Canfield
CJU
James Plath, ed.
Conversations with John Updike.
Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1994.
Coup The Coup
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978.
Couples Couples
. New York: Random House Trade Paperback, 2012.
CP
Collected Poems, 1953–1993.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993.
DC
Due Considerations: Essays and Criticism
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007.
EL Elizabeth Lawrence
EP
Endpoint and Other Poems
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009.
ES
The Early Stories: 1953–1975
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003.
GD Golf Dreams: Writings on Golf
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996.
Harper Updike correspondence in the Harper and Brothers archive.
HG
Higher Gossip: Essays and Criticism
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011.
Hiller Cathy Hiller. “Updike at Forty.” Unpublished profile of JU written in April 1972.
HM Howard Moss
Houghton John Updike Archive, Houghton Library, Harvard University.
HS
Hugging the Shore: Essays and Criticism
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983.
Illinois William Maxwell papers, University of Illinois Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
JCO Joyce Carol Oates
JJ Judith Jones
JL
Just Looking: Essays on Art
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989.
JU John Updike
KL Robert Christopher (“Kit”) Lasch
KSW Katharine Sergeant White
Lasch Kit Lasch’s letters to his parents, Christopher Lasch Papers, River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester.
LGH Linda Grace Hoyer Updike
LL
Licks of Love: Short Stories and a Sequel, “Rabbit Remembered.”
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000.
LP Letters to Plowville, JU to LGH and WU, John Updike Archive, Houghton Library, Harvard University.
MA Michael Arlen
MEUU Mary Ella Updike
MFA Memories of the Ford Administration.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992.
Michigan Delbanco Papers, Special Collections Library, University of Michigan.
MM
More Matter: Essays and Criticism
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999.
MS
A Month of Sundays
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1975.
MT
My Father’s Tears and Other Stories
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009.
MW Mary Weatherall
ND Nicholas Delbanco
NYPL
New Yorker
records. New York Public Library.
OF
Of the Farm
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1965.
OJ
Odd Jobs: Essays and Criticism
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991.
Orion Updike correspondence in the archives of Victor Gollancz Ltd. Gollancz is now owned by the Orion Publishing Group.
OS
Olinger Stories
. New York: Vintage Books, 1964.
P
Problems and Other Stories
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979.
PF The Poorhouse Fair
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1959.
PF77
The Poorhouse Fair
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977.
PP
Picked-Up Pieces
. Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Crest, 1976.
RA Roger Angell
Ransom Knopf Archive, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas.
Rochester Christopher Lasch Papers, River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester.
RRedux
Rabbit Redux
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971.
RRest Rabbit at Rest
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990.
RRich Rabbit Is Rich
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981.
RRun Rabbit, Run
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1960.
RV Roger’s Version
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986.
SC
Self-Consciousness
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989.
SR Stewart (“Sandy”) Richardson
Syracuse Joyce Carol Oates Papers, Syracuse University Library.
TB Anthony Bailey
TET Toward the End of Time
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997.
T
d
Time
magazine
dispatches related to the April 26, 1968, Updike cover story. Houghton Library, Harvard University.
TM
Trust Me and Other Stories
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987.
Tulsa André Deutsch Collection, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa.
Ursinus Linda Grace Hoyer Papers, Myrin Library, Ursinus College.
VG Victor Gollancz
WE
The Witches of Eastwick
. New York: Fawcett Crest, 1985.
WM William Maxwell
WMRR
What Makes Rabbit Run?
David Cheshire, producer. BBC TV, January 26, 1982.
WU Wesley Updike
Introduction
ix “public, marketable self”:
SC
, 238.
x “he had a bona fide twinkle in his eye”: Jane Smiley, from a tribute posted on Granta.com, January 31, 2009.
x “I read and talked into the microphone”:
SC
, 237.
xi “[A]s Norman Mailer pointed out”:
MM
, 824.
xii “John could be funny”: Author interview, MA, April 1, 2009.
xii he “somehow withdrew a little”: Roger Angell, “The Fadeaway,”
The New Yorker
, February 9, 2009, 38.
xii “a pretty average person”:
WMRR
.
xii declared “unreservedly” that Updike was a genius: Nicholson Baker,
U and I: A True Story
(New York: Random House, 1991), 126.
xii “He was not a genius”: Lionel Trilling,
The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000), 262–63.
xii “Here lies a small-town boy”:
WMRR
.
xiii he dreamed of becoming a “universal artist”: LP, February 16, 1953.
xiii “the refuse of my profession”:
MM
, 852.
I. A Tour of Berks County
1 “
my
home turf”: JU interviewed by Jeffrey Goldberg at the New York Public Library, June 15, 2006.
2 “I really think being interviewed”:
CJU
, xi.
2 “I know all about him”: E-mail, William Ecenbarger to author, April 5, 2009.
2 “He told me when he left for Harvard”: William Ecenbarger, “Updike Is Home,”
Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine
, June 12, 1983, 19.
3 “Chonny will be here tomorrow”: E-mail, Ecenbarger to author, April 5, 2009.
3 “He often gets that way”: Ecenbarger, “Updike Is Home,” 19.
3 “Let’s go,” he said: Ibid.
3 “I’ll drive so you can take notes”: Ibid.
5 he helpfully spelled out the word: Author interview, William Ecenbarger, May 29, 2009.
5 “where we used to neck”: Ibid.
5 “my only girlfriend”:
SC
, 37.
5 “pilgrim’s progress”:
CJU
, 26.
6 “I become exhilarated in Shillington”:
SC
, 220.
6 “We walk through volumes”:
ES
, 92.
6 “Freud somewhere claims”:
OJ
, 134.
7 Fiction is a “dirty business”:
SC
, 231.
7 “a deliberate indulgence”: Ibid., 40.
7 “scraps” that have been “used”: Ibid.
7 “Nimble and bald”:
AP
, 129.
7 “Artie for a joke”:
SC
, 19.
7 “a town that was also” . . . “scribbling for my life”: Ibid., 40 and 54.
7 “simultaneous sense of loss”:
OJ
, 134.
8 “for providing a / sufficiency of human types”:
EP
, 26.
8 “the drab normalities”:
HS
, 855.
8 “Most of the best fiction”:
SC
, 252.
8 “realize . . . the shape”: JU, application for the 1959 Guggenheim Fellowship competition, mailed to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation on November 10, 1958.
8 “We must write where we stand”:
PP
, 48.
8 “relentless domestic realism”:
SC
, 150.
8 “normal intra-familial courtesy”: Ibid.
8 “[T]he nearer and dearer they are”: Ibid., 231.
9 “decided at an early age”:
WMRR
.
9 “My duty as a writer”: Ibid.
9 “as 10-point Janson”
EP
, 10.
9 “teasing little connections”:
CJU
, 27.
9 “I disavow any essential connection”: Ibid.
9 “Creative excitement”:
OJ
, 135.
9 “I don’t really feel it’s me”:
WMRR
.
10 “Imitation is praise,” he wrote:
SC
, 231.
11 “A wake-up call?”:
EP
, 21.
11 “We read fiction”: David Streitfeld, “Updike at Bay,”
The Washington Post
, December 16, 1998.
11 “only the imagery we have personally gathered”:
MM
, 293.
12 “I was never able”: Ibid., 37.
12 “heart-tearing” cough:
SC
, 174.
13 “It was courtesy of Nora”: Ibid, 174.
13 “hoping she would accidentally”: Ibid., 39.
14 “I did not let Nora’s satiny skin”: Ibid., 38.
14 “This is the way it was, is”:
CJU
, 28.
14 “Composition, in crystallizing memory”:
OS
, vi.
15 “Once I’ve coined a [character’s] name”:
CJU
, 27.
15 “imitate reality with increasing closeness”: JU, Guggenheim application.
16 “an ideally permissive writer’s mother”:
CJU
, 26.
16 “only truth is useful”:
SC
, 231.
16 “He portrayed me as he saw me”: Ecenbarger, “Updike Is Home,” 20.
16 “I don’t think I’m as witty”: Steve Neal,
Rolling on the River: The Best of Steve Neal
(Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1999), 194–95.
16 “She paused and said”: Author interview, Ron Chernow, August 19, 2009.
17 “would-be writer”:
CJU
, 83.
17 “I had only a little gift”: Ecenbarger, “Updike Is Home,” 20.
17 “It probably wouldn’t have occurred to me”:
T
d.
18 “straight fiction”: MEUU to LGH, March 21, 1931, Ursinus.
18 “one of the disadvantages”: Remarks made at Ursinus College, November 1991.
18 “frequently revised and never published”:
OJ
, 871.
18 “There was a novel”: Ibid., 834.
19 “I had not hitherto realized”:
SC
, 105.
19 “plodding out to the mailbox”:
MM
, 763.
19 “I never see a blue mailbox”:
OJ
, 120.
19 “the slave shack of the unpublished”:
MM
, 765.
19 “My mother knew non-publication’s shame”:
EP
, 12.
20 “I took off from her failure”: Ibid., 11.
20 “I always did think he could fly”:
T
d.
20 “I was made to feel that I could do things”: Neal,
Rolling on the River
, 194.
20 “the great leap of imagination”:
OJ
, 68.
20 “trying to reach beyond” . . . “hiding from the town”: Ibid., 834;
SC
, 27.
21 “synonymous” with his being:
SC
, 30.
21 “I began my life”: Linda Grace Hoyer,
Enchantment
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1971), 6. (Hereafter cited as LGH,
Enchantment
.)
22 a “revelation” that left her with “no choice”: Ibid., 61–62.
22 “I had this foresight”: Quoted in Hiller.
22 According to her son: JU to JCO, May 17, 1996, Syracuse.
22 “Possibly the household that nurtured me”:
SC
, 256.
22 “pretensions to quality”: Ibid., 221.
23 “a belle of sorts”: Ibid., 27.
23 She found herself unable:
T
d.
23 “running scared financially”:
BookTV
.
23 Updike was struck:
AP
, 130.
23 “I grew up”:
CJU
, 167.
24 “locked into a star”:
AP
, 121.
24 “The fifth point of a star”:
CP
, 70.