That’s right. The John Updike Society Facebook page has reached 770 “likes,” which is more than three times the number of society members.
All of the stories from this website are posted on Facebook, but there are also memes (like the one below) posted on the Facebook page that aren’t posted on this site. So if you don’t want to be left out and if you “do” Facebook, remember to “like” the John Updike Society page.
Franco Library at Alvernia University, which houses The John Updike Society Archive (renamed, apparently, John Updike Collection), has catalogued the holdings digitally and made them available online so scholars and researchers can see the full range of items in the collection and decide whether there are materials that might be of use/interest.
In fact, archivist Gene Mitchell says that if any Society members email him to set up an appointment while they’re in Reading to attend The Third Biennial John Updike Society Conference, he will make arrangements to have those materials ready and waiting.
Here’s the link to the John Updike Collection.
Every story that appears on The John Updike Society website/blog is also posted on the Society’s Facebook page, but don’t forget to “Like” JUS on Facebook. Otherwise you’ll miss out on the John Updike quote memes posted there from time to time that are not added to this website. Why? Because Facebook is a lighter, more visually oriented medium.
The top three favorites thus far? “My characters are very fond of both safety and freedom . . . and yet the two things don’t go together, quite, so they’re in a state of tension all the time.” That meme circulated to 31,520 people.
Members have grown used to seeing posts from The Other John Updike Archive, a treasure trove of lost-and-found paper objects related to all facets of Updike’s life. Now it seems there’s an Other John Updike Society—or at least another incarnation of one.
New member Norm Carlson, who retired in 2001 as an Associate Professor of English at Western Michigan University, writes in his letter asking to join, “Actually, what I’ll sort of be doing—in military-speak—is ‘re-upping,’ since I was a member of the original John Updike Society back in the 1970s.
“That organization, in my memory, was more-or-less owned and operated by Joyce Markle, whose Fighters and Lovers (1973) was one of the earliest scholarly books about Updike’s work. She produced a mimeographed newsletter and arranged for annual John Updike Society sessions at MLA meetings.”
Longtime Updike scholar Don Greiner had no knowledge of this previous Updike Society, so we asked search-engine wizards David Lull and Larry Randen—Jim Yerkes’ editorial team for The Centaurian, who are now diligently finding Updike-related news for the Society website and Facebook page—to see what they could find out.
They came up with two relevant bios from John Updike: A Collection of Critical Essays edited by David Thorburn and Howard Eiland (Prentice-Hall, 1979), the first critical anthology devoted to Updike’s work:
“Dean Doner is academic vice-president of Boston University and a writer of stories and criticism. He edits the newsletter of the John Updike Society.”
“Joyce Markle has taught English at Loyola University. A founder of the John Updike Society, she was a consultant in the filming of Updike’s story ‘The Music School,’ which was televised nationally by the Public Broadcasting System in 1977.”
So there you have it: the first artifacts of The John Updike Society’s early history. Hopefully more information will surface. Pictured is the hard-to-find dust jacket from Fighters and Lovers, featuring artwork by Markle’s sister, Susan Bonners, an American Book Award-winning illustrator.