It’s not on the Internet, but thanks to David Lull we have a transcript of an early review of the UK version of Adam Begley’s Updike:

“Beautiful dreamer.” Jenny Needham. Northern Echo [Darlington (UK)]. May 5, 2014. 42.
Adam Begley provides the ideal companion to the life of writer John Updike
Non-fiction Updike by Adam Begley (Harper [pounds]25, eBook [pounds]25)

“For the second half of the 20th Century, John Updike bestrode the world of US fiction as the definitive man of letters. His best novels—notably the Rabbit tetralogy—invited comparison with the greats of the 19th Century.

“Effortlessly prolific, absurdly versatile and almost invariably wordperfect, his output included more than a dozen novels, around 100 short stories (many lodged with the New Yorker, his spiritual home), several hundred book reviews (ditto), collections of light verse, and writings on golf, art and all sorts of miscellaneous topics.

“He was the sort of writer who could turn even a frivolous magazine commission into a text of lasting beauty. Yet for all the prizes and adulation, he originally hoped to make it as an illustrator, and secretly wished that people took his serious poetry more seriously.

“In Adam Begley, Updike has a biographer worthy of his talents. A fine writer in his own right, Begley is empathetic but not uncritical, and organises his story thematically—golf, infidelities, travels abroad etc—rather than follow a strict chronology.

“Begley is a close reader of the texts, adept at teasing out both pointed literary insights and the biographical parallels between the life and the fiction. These, it turns out, are almost embarrassingly easy to find: adultery in the suburbs, the death of parents, the character of his children, the travails of being a grandparent. . . Updike ruthlessly pillages his and his loved ones’ personal lives for material.

“For me, the first two-thirds of the book could not have been bettered.

“But the final sections, detailing Updike’s late writings and death, have a disappointingly foreshortened feel.

“All in all, though, if you love Updike you’ll absolutely love this book.”

Note: To read the online reviews of Updike collected thus far (which now number 59), click here.