We are saddened to report that Joe McDade, a longtime member of The John Updike Society, has died. His obituary reads, simply, “Joseph Skelton McDade was born on May 29, 1965, in Needham, Massachusetts. He passed away on January 16, 2026, at the age of 60. Joseph was a resident of Katy, Texas.” The site has a place to add memories and offer condolences. Friends have left messages on his Facebook page as well.

For 30+ years, Joe was Professor of English at Houston Community College, where, according to Rate My Professor, his students found him to be “hilarious” and a “tough grader” who “gives good feedback.” Updike society members who interacted with Joe also found him to be quick-witted and wryly jocular. Joe attended a number of John Updike Society biennial conferences, including the very first one in 2010 at Alvernia University in Reading, Pa., where he presented a paper on “Updike’s Great Ambivalence: Rabbit and Emersonian Romanticism.”

Those who attended the fourth conference at the University of South Carolina, when Joe applied Emersonianism to Updike’s A Month of Sundays, most likely remember him as the exuberant organizer of the first (and thus far only) Rabbit Open best ball golf tournament at Cobblestone Park in Columbia. Always one to go all out, Joe had t-shirts made especially for the occasion, as well as printed golf balls for every entrant and a trophy for the winning foursome to hoist. And being such a golf nut as he was—a passion Updike also shared—Joe finished on the winning team. Society members last saw Joe at the 7th Biennial JUS Conference in Tucson. His passing leaves a hole in one—a joke, we think, he would have appreciated.