Literary Hub is no stranger to John Updike, and a recent article, “From Eve Babitz to Raven Leilani, Readings on Solipsistic, Transformative Love” by Lillian Fishman, includes John Updike’s Couples.

Of the novel, Fishman writes, “A novel apparently about sex, Couples is actually about something much more interesting: how adultery itself—’its adventure, the acrobatics its deceptions demand, the tension of its hidden strings, the new landscapes it makes us master’—can breathe life into a prematurely settled existence. Though he describes a number of affairs among the couples of Tarbox, Updike follows most closely behind Piet, whose womanizing is never premediated but who falls into one affair-adventure after another, believing his talent is that he genuinely loves every woman he touches. Sincere and special in the way it expresses how we explain ourselves to ourselves, and deeply forgiving of our failings, especially when they occur in the service of reanimating a life.”

Other novels referenced and recommended are Luster: A Novel (Raven Leilani), Simple Passion (Annie Ernaux), Slow Days, Fast Company (Eve Babitz), Self-Portrait (Celia Paul), Seven Years (Peter Stamm), Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? (Kathleen Collins), and Pure Colour (Sheila Heti).

Fishman is the author of Acts of Service, available from Hogarth Press.