The John Updike Review editor James Schiff passed along this item about New York City streets and a John Updike mention, invoking one of his old unsigned Talk of the Town features.
“John Updike Would Have Loved 6 1/2th Avenue Even If the Dailies Don’t”
Yesterday marked John Updike’s 80th birthday, and in tribute The Christian Science Monitor offered 10 quotes “to commemorate one of America’s exceptional men of letters.”
Here’s the link to “John Updike: 10 quotes on his birthday.”
Member Ken Krawchuk writes that he heard on the radio that NPR’s “Fresh Air with Terry Gross” will air archival interviews with John Updike today, in celebration of the author’s birthday and the rerelease of his works in paperback. You’ll have to check your local NPR station for the schedule.
Jack De Bellis provided this link for Pennsylvania area listeners, and here’s a link to the “Fresh Air” interviews that was just posted.
The third volume of John Updike’s essays on art, Always Looking, is now available for pre-order at Amazon.com for $29.70, 34 percent off the $45.00 list price.
Always Looking will be released in hardcover on November 27, 2012. As with Just Looking (1989) and Still Looking (2005), the 224-page volume will be generously illustrated with photos of the artwork.
Arts Beat reports that Random House will “mark John Updike’s birthday this month with the rerelease of some of his most beloved works, including the ‘Rabbit’ series, the publisher said on Tuesday.”
There’s no press release on the Random House media site to that effect, but Arts Beat writer Julie Bosman might have inside information. “Random House will also rerelease e-book editions of the entire backlist of Mr. Updike’s work,” she writes, “most of which has never appeared in e-book format. A posthumous essay collection, ‘Higher Gossip,’ will appear in paperback for the first time,” she writes, but gives no date. Here’s the link. Thanks to Jack De Bellis for calling it to our attention.
Details are in place for the Second Biennial John Updike Society Conference, co-sponsored and hosted by Suffolk University, Boston.
We hope that we’ve balanced special sessions and tours with enough free time to enjoy this historic city.
Here are registration and hotel details: UPDIKE IN BOSTON and information on Suffolk dorm housing reservations.
They will also be emailed to members. The closing dinner for this conference will be at Woodman’s of Essex, which, attendees at the First Biennial John Updike Society Conference learned, was a place where Updike often took his family. They’re also world-famous for their clambakes.
Jack De Bellis, currently the John Updike Professor in Residence at Alvernia University and a director of The John Updike Society, will speak on the topic “Updike’s Pranks and the Girls He Pranked.”
The talk will be held at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, February 29, in the McGlinn Conference Center (formerly the Bernardine Franciscan Conference Center) at Alvernia University in Reading, Pa. The talk is free and open to the public, and a reception will follow.
Program director Bernard F. Rodgers, Jr. and site director Quentin Miller are pleased to announce details of the Second Biennial John Updike Society Conference in Boston, co-sponsored by Suffolk University.
Suffolk, the third largest university in Boston, is located on Beacon Hill, adjacent to the Massachusetts State House and not far from the famed Boston Commons and the start of the Freedom Trail walking tour of the city’s historical landmarks (map). It’s close to the subway and a quick and easy ride to and from the airport. We’ll provide complete directions as the time draws nearer.
This conference, members have the choice of staying at the Holiday Inn Boston at Beacon Hill a short walk from Suffolk, or in a Suffolk University dormitory room with common (shared) bathroom. The Holiday Inn rate is $179 (plus taxes and surcharges) per night, and members should mention The John Updike Society block (40 rooms reserved) and the $179 rate when booking, or it’s considerably more expensive. You’ll need to book the hotel by phone, and the Holiday Inn phone number is (617) 742-7630. The dorm rate at Suffolk University is $76 for a single, and $54 for a double (per person). Suffolk dorm housing reservations
Some of the highlights? Joyce Carol Oates, of course. And the Updike family is mounting a special exhibit of objects and mementos mentioned in the fiction. You’ll get to see them up-close, after which Michael Updike and others will talk about the items in a special session. In addition, Mary and Bob Weatherall have graciously agreed to allow members to see several rooms of their house at 66 Labor-in-Vain Road—one of the houses in Ipswich where John Updike once lived. And baseball fans will find our tour of Fenway Park memorable, especially since Fenway is celebrating its centennial this year and Updike witnessed Ted Williams’ historic last at-bat there, resulting in one of the all-time great sports stories: “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu.”
The conference will begin with a reception hosted by Suffolk University at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, June 12, followed by the keynote address by Oates. Wednesday, June 13 features academic sessions, the family session, an optional walking tour of literary Boston, the Fenway Park tour, and a 6 p.m. reception hosted by Suffolk University. On Thursday, June 14, following morning academic panels everyone will head for Cambridge for a look at Harvard sites—including the fabled Lampoon and the dorm where Updike stayed. Then it’s on to the Houghton Library, the chief repository for John Updike’s papers. We’ll be welcomed by curator Leslie Morris, who’s mounting a small, special exhibit for Society members and, with The John Updike Review, co-hosting a reception for us. Friday, June 15, is bus day. Following academic panels and a session featuring North Shore area friends of Updike, members will board buses for a drive to Salem to see some of the Hawthorne sites. Members who haven’t seen the buildings there will have the time to tour the Hawthorne House, The House of the Seven Gables, the Custom House, etc., before we board the buses for a tour of Updike sites in Ipswich and conclude with an old-fashioned clambake on the Top Deck at Woodman’s of Essex—which the Updike children said was a favorite eatery of their dad’s. The final panels are scheduled for the morning of Saturday, June 16, with the conference coming to an end following the 11 a.m. business meeting of the Society.
We hope you’ll join us and help us maintain the momentum the Society enjoyed for the first three years! We’ll post more details, registration information, and a conference schedule with papers in the coming weeks. In the meantime, if you have any questions, email Society president James Plath (jplath@iwu.edu).
The John Updike Society will sponsor one panel at ALA this year, and it features two presenters new to the Society.
“John Updike in Context”
“Much Ado About Nothing: Boredom, Banality, and Bathos in Late Henry Green and Early John Updike.” David Brauner, University of Reading (UK)
“Rabbit and America’s Shared Identity Crisis,” Christopher Love, University of Southern Mississippi
“Villages: Updike Homes in Fiction, Memoir, and Essay,” Peter J. Bailey, St. Lawrence University
Chair/Moderator: Edward Allen, The University of South Dakota
Here are reviews of Higher Gossip that have come to our attention. Check back. The list will grow:
“Higher Gossip: Essays and Criticism.” Publishers Weekly. 12 September 2011. “The hallmarks of his agile, eloquent prose are evident throughout . . . .”
“Higher Gossip.” Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review). 15 September 2011. “A potpourri of pieces from the busy pen of the gifted Updike (1932-2009) who shows that he could write convincingly about nearly anything.”
“Higher Gossip: Essays and Criticism.” Brad Hooper. Booklist Online. 15 October 2011. “Lines to remember jump out left and right. This one is in reference to Raymond Carver, ‘Some hard times are part of every writer’s equipment.'”
“‘Higher Gossip: Essays and Criticism’ by John Updike.” William H. Pritchard. The Boston Globe. 28 October 2011. “As a whole these varied pieces partake of the major aims of all art: to ‘sidestep mortality with feats of attention, of harmony, of illuminating connection’; to give, in the final words of the introduction to collected early stories, ‘the mundane its beautiful due.'”