Members of The John Updike Society are looking forward to the release of the Selected Letters of John Updike, edited by James Schiff and scheduled for October publication by Knopf, Updike’s main publisher since 1959. Members who attend the Roth-Updike Conference will have the chance to get signed copies in New York. As a teaser, The New Yorker today posted “An Adolescent Crush That Never Let Up: An epistolary history of a fifty-five-year relationship with The New Yorker, by John Updike.” The post is dated July 11, 2025, which is sure to confuse people in the future, regardless of whether they know Updike died in 2009.
The letters begin with a March 1949 query from Updike, still a high school student, asking for “some information on those little filler drawings you publish, and, I presume, buy. What size should they be? Mounted or not? Are there any preferences as to subject matter, weight of cardboard, and technique?”
The remaining letters are directed to various editors, his parents (whom he addresses as “Plowvillians”), and others that collectively give some sense of his relationship with The New Yorker. The final letter, addressed to fiction editor Deborah Treisman, is a poignant one, given that it was written just 17 days before Updike passed away:
“. . . I suppose of the many things I have tried to write, short stories have given me most gratification and unqualified pleasure. I am glad that what looks to be my last book, to be published this June, is short stories, called My Father’s Tears, probably the best of the bunch. But I would feel less happy about the collection if you and your editorial colleagues had not allowed me to cap it with two New Yorker acceptances—the little suburban fling in the power outage, and the rambling reminisce about happiness and sex and water and the little journey of a NE American life. I feel much happier about a collection that begins and ends with The New Yorker, where I began and ended.
Heer had written, “Not too long ago, the Fourth of July was a festive occasion: a day of national celebration, hot dogs and parades, flag-waving and fireworks. John Updike memorialized the traditional July 4 holiday in Rabbit at Rest (1990), the 
“John Updike’s 1960 novel introduced readers to Harry ‘Rabbit’ Angstrom, perhaps the most iconic character in suburban literature. Harry ‘Rabbit’ Angstrom is a middle-class man who feels there is something missing from his life. The novel follows Rabbit as he flees his suburban responsibilities—his pregnant wife, his job, his entire life—in a desperate attempt to recapture the vitality of his youth. Frank Wheeler, Piet Hanema, Frank Bascombe – these are a handful of the suburban men in the fiction of Richard Yates, John Updike, and Richard Ford. These writers all display certain characteristics of the suburban novel in the post-WWII era: the male experience placed at the forefront of narration, the importance of competition both socially and economically, contrasting feelings of desire and loathing for predictability, and the impact of an increasingly developed landscape upon the American psyche and the individual’s mind. Updike’s genius was in making Rabbit both sympathetic and infuriating—a man whose suburban malaise drives him to make increasingly destructive choices. The novel launched a series that would span four decades, chronicling the evolution of suburban America through one man’s journey.”
The issue was negative versus positive reviews. Christopher Lehmann-Haupt’s New York Times review was cited as an example of the former, with Lehmann-Haupt arguing that “by repeatedly invoking Catch-22 Mr. O’Brien reminds us that Mr. Heller caught the madness of war better, if only because the logic of Catch-22 is consistently surrealistic and doesn’t try to mix in fantasies that depend on their believability to sustain. I can even imagine it being said that 
“American novelist John Updike claimed not to write for ego: ‘I think of it more as innocence. A writer must be in some way innocent.’ We might raise an eyebrow at this, from the highly successful and famously intrusive chronicler of human closeness. Even David Foster Wallace, the totem effigy of literary chauvinism, denounced Updike as a ‘phallocrat.’ But if we doubt such innocence of Updike, pronouncing as he was at the flushest height of fiction’s postwar heyday, we might believe it of these new novelists, writing as they are and when they are. Without a promise of glory, and facing general skepticism, they have written from pure motives. They are novelists as Updike defined them: ‘only a reader who was so excited that he tried to imitate and give back the bliss that he enjoyed’.
As part of a grand centennial year celebration, an episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour featured 
“Welcome to a distinguished residence where historic charm meets modern comfort. Spanning 2 grand Back Bay townhouses, this home offers city living at its finest. Originally built for the Lowell family & later home to John Updike, 151 Beacon features 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, & over 2,000 sq. ft. of sophisticated living space. Enjoy direct elevator access, a formal living room w/ gas fireplace, custom built-ins, & oversized windows framing picturesque Beacon Street views. The open-concept kitchen, enhanced by bay windows w/ striking John Hancock Tower views, boasts a central island & a second gas fireplace. The primary suite offers a luxurious retreat w/ an oversized walk-in closet & spacious ensuite bath. 2 additional bedrooms, a powder room, in-unit laundry, & two separate AC/heat units complete the layout. Set in a professionally managed, boutique building of just 6 residences, this home includes 1 tandem parking space & is around the corner from some of Bostons Historic landmarks.”