New essay published on Updike’s short stories

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John Updike Society member Haruki Takebe wrote that his essay, “The Apocrypha of The Maples Stories: John Updike’s Fe/Male Points of View Reconsidered,” was published in the most recent issue of Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction.

The journal has allowed the author 50 free downloads, so if you’re among the first to click on this link you can read the article compliments of the author and Critique.

ABSTRACT

John Updike’s notorious penchant for using the male point of view should not be attributed to the author’s alleged misogyny; on the contrary, his careful handling of male and female perspectives deserves close re-evaluation. After tracing how the young Updike struggled to incorporate a female point of view in his early fiction and, for a time, settled on employing a male perspective in his mid-career stories of Richard and Joan Maple, this essay revolves around a female-voiced story “Killing” (drafted in 1975 and published in 1982), scrutinizing its publication history and the archival materials associated with it. As a result, we see that the story demonstrates Updike’s successful attempt to explore a woman’s interiority as well as shows an example of his subtle craftsmanship, involving his use of the pronoun us at the sto-ry’s dénouement. Moreover, “Killing” foreshadows Updike’s female narratives in his late phase, especially Seek My Face (2002), where the similar technique is extensively utilized to portray two women’s incompatibility and their following reconciliation.

Updike panels set, registration deadline nears for ALA

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The John Updike Society was launched at the American Literature Association conference in Boston in May 2009 and has participated in ALA conferences ever since. The ALA is a coalition of societies devoted to the study of American authors. Many of those societies are single-author, and registrants/attendees are able to attend any sessions sponsored by the many societies.

Updike Society panels are set for the 33rd Annual Conference on American Literature at the historic Palmer House Hilton (celebrating its 150th anniversary this year) in downtown Chicago, Ill., May 26-29 2022:

Thursday, May 26, 2022
Session 1-I, 9-10:20 a.m.
“Women and Sex in the Works of John Updike and Other Male Authors”
Moderator: James Plath (Illinois Wesleyan Univ.)
Panelists: Susan Norton (Technological Univ. Dublin), Marshall Boswell (Rhodes College), Biljana Dojčinović (Univ. of Belgrade), Olga Karasik-Updike (Independent Scholar), and Matthew Koch (Tarrant County College).

Friday, May 27, 2022
Session 8-I, 10-11:20 a.m.
“Autobiography and Updike’s Self-Consciousness“
Moderator: Matthew Koch (Tarrant County College)
Panelists: Peter Bailey (St. Lawrence Univ.), Sylvie Mathé (Aix-Marseille Univ.), Quentin Miller (Suffolk Univ.), Robert Morace (Daemen College), and James Schiff (Univ. of Cincinnati).

Friday, May 27, 2022
Session 9-L, 11:30 a.m.-12:50 p.m.
John Updike Society Business Meeting (all welcome to attend)

Full draft program

Those who are on the program are required to pre-register by April 15. The conference fee is $175, with a reduced rate of $125 for graduate students, independent scholars, and retired faculty. Information on the hotel conference rate, links, and other details can be found on the ALA website.

Updike in South Africa?

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Fans of John Updike know that his books, especially signed ones and first editions, continue to be highly collectible and available from numerous dealers. But in Cape Town, South Africa?

Yep.

Rare Collections of Cape Town is currently selling 72 Updike volumes, many of which somehow came from the collection of Philadelphia lawyer and Updike fan Albert J. Raman. “John Updike and Albert obviously got to know each other very well over the years,” Rare Collections’ Christo Snyman said. “Many of the signed books have notes referencing their ‘friendship,’ ranging from John saying thank you for the golf balls Albert sent him to a thank you on behalf of his wife for some compliment given.”

If society members type “UPDIKE” in the Promo Code window, they will get a 30 percent discount. Be aware that shipping is $45, whether one volume or 10. Shipping will be via tracked courier and takes around 4-10 days. Here’s the link. Members are welcome to email Christo (christo@rarecollections.co.za) with any questions.

Updike turns up on new HBOMax Julia Child series

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To readers of John Updike, Judith Jones is well known as the author’s longtime editor at Alfred A. Knopf. But before she worked for Knopf, Jones was known as the one who pulled The Diary of Anne Frank out of the rejection pile at Doubleday. And at Knopf, while she was establishing a relationship with Updike, she was also championing Julia Childs’ Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Jones (played by Fiona Glascott) features prominently as a character on the new HBOMax series Julia, a fictionalized account of how Child got her start at WGBH-TV, Boston’s PBS station. The first three episodes dropped on March 31, 2022. According to the cast list at the Internet Movie Database, Updike doesn’t make an appearance. But in the first three episodes Jones’ other “project” is frequently mentioned: as the author of Rabbit, Run, as a new bright star in the Knopf universe, as a writer having a “crisis” Jones suspects is merely a ploy for a free lunch, and as the originator of a manuscript she’s editing on the WGBH set while she multitasks.

Sarah Lancashire stars in the title role, with Frazier alums David Hyde Pierce and Bebe Neuwirth appearing as Child’s husband and best friend, respectively. Dale Place plays Alfred Knopf. So far the series has an 8.1 rating out of 10 from IMDB.com viewers and critics.

UPDATE: In Episode 4, a bespectacled Updike finally makes an appearance, played by Bryce Pinkham. Pinkham was an original cast member of the Broadway shows A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, Ghost: The Musical, and Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. He also appeared in the PBS series Mercy Street.

Glascott as Judith Jones, with Pierce playing Paul Child
Bryce Pinkham as John Updike on a WGBH interview program in the HBOMax series Julia

Local TV reports on Updike 90th birthday event

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It was a soft (and occasionally noisy) spring day in Shillington when a crowd of around 30 gathered on the side lawn of The John Updike Childhood Home, 117 Philadelphia Ave., in Shillington, Pa.

They came on Friday, March 18, to celebrate what would have been the author’s 90th birthday, to hear leading Berks County citizens read from Updike’s works, letters, interviews, and even poems the Pulitzer Prize-winning author wrote as a love-struck 10 year old.

And WFMZ 69 News was there to report.

Updike’s 90th Birthday Celebration streamed on Facebook Live

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John Updike was born 90 years ago on this date. To celebrate, John Updike Childhood Home Director of Education Maria Lester organized and hosted a reading featuring prominent Berks County residents. Watch the Facebook Live recording of the 90th Birthday Celebration at The John Updike Childhood Home, 117 Philadelphia Ave., Shillington, Pa., featuring readings from Updike’s works, interviews, letters, and even personal love poems written as a 10 year old in Shillington.

:01—Introduction and reading by Maria Lester, Director of Education at The John Updike Childhood Home (pictured)

4:54—Samantha J. Wesner, Senior Vice President Student & Campus Life, Albright College

17:18—Conrad Vanino, Shillington Councilperson and Fire Police Lt.

22:13—Charles J. Adams III, Editor, The Historical Review of Berks County

35:48—Bill McKay, Superintendent, Governor Mifflin School District

44:55—Melissa Adams, Executive Director, The Reading Public Library

49:10—Jackie Hirneisen Kendall, Updike’s classmate and first “crush”

53:55—Dave Silcox, Updike’s Berks County contact for 10 years

57:40—David W. Ruoff, former student and friend of Wesley Updike

1:01:00—Jack De Bellis, author of Updike’s Early Years, The John Updike Encyclopedia, and John Updike Remembered

Happy 90th Birthday, John Updike!

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John Updike, born this day in 1932, would have turned 90 today. From 1958-2009, Updike published roughly one book every year. He remains one of the most lauded American writers of the 20th century, being one of just four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction twice, one of only a handful of creative talents to receive both the National Medal of Arts (1989, from Pres. George H.W. Bush) and the National Humanities Medal (2003, from Pres. George W. Bush) in White House ceremonies, and one of just four literary writers to appear on the cover of Time magazine twice.

Pictured (right) is the Alex Katz portrait of Updike that was featured on the second cover on October 18, 1982. Time had commissioned the portrait for the cover, and later donated it to the National Portrait Gallery, where it hangs in the 20th Century Americans exhibition on the third floor.  The National Portrait Gallery also is home to the 1968 painting by Robert Vickrey (lower left) that appeared on the first Time magazine cover.

Updike was notoriously generous with his time—well known for responding to readers and spending time with groups large and small that wanted to hear him talk about writing and the state of literature in America. In that spirit, The John Updike Childhood Home will hold a special 90th Birthday Celebration reading just 90 minutes from now. Weather permitting, the reading will be held under the arbor at the side of the house; in case of inclement weather, the reading will be moved indoors and the audience will be limited to the first 25 people who come to the event at 117 Philadelphia Ave., Shilington, Pa.

The 90-minute reading of Updike’s Pennsylvania-related works, organized and hosted by Director of Education Maria Lester, features prominent Berks County residents, some of whom knew Updike and members of the Updike family.  Those unable to attend in person should check the John Updike Childhood Home Facebook page at 12 p.m. EST. The plan (technology permitting) is to stream the event on Facebook Live.

Featured readers: Samantha J. Wesner, Senior Vice President Student & Campus Life, Albright College; Conrad Vanino, Shillington Councilperson and Fire Police Lt.; Charles J. Adams III, editor of The Historical Review of Berks County; Bill McKay, Superintendent, Governor Mifflin School District; Melissa Adams, Executive Director, The Reading Public Library; Jackie Hirneisen Kendall, Updike’s classmate and first “crush”; Dave Silcox, Updike’s Berks County contact for 10 years; David W. Ruoff, former student and friend of Wesley Updike; and Jack De Bellis, author of Updike’s Early Years, John Updike Remembered, and The John Updike Encyclopedia.

Article on banned books includes Rabbit, Run (of course)

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Suzanna Bowling, who co-owns and publishes the newspaper Times Square Chronicles, penned and posted an article titled “Book Banning: What Is This Nazism?” that includes Updike’s Rabbit, Run . . . though other books on her list have sparked more outrage.

Bowling’s annotated list includes specifics on the bans, challenges, and restrictions that have been directed at such books as The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, The Grapes of Wrath, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Color Purple, Beloved, Of Mice and Men, Catch-22, The Sun Also Rises, As I Lay Dying, A Farewell to Arms, Invisible Man, Song of Solomon, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Slaughterhouse-Five, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Jungle, and All the King’s Men. In other words, great, classic American literature.

Slaughterhouse-Five, for example, was “challenged in many communities,” banned in the cities of Rochester, Levittown, North Jackson, and Lakeland, and burned in Drake, N.D.

Rabbit, Run, by contrast, got off easy. It was banned in Ireland from 1962-67, restricted to high school students with parental permission in the six Aroostock County, Maine community high school llibraries, and removed from the required reading list for English Class at Medicine Bow Junior High School in Wyoming.

Though Banned Books Week isn’t until September 18-24, 2022, if you’re looking to get an early start on your reading or rereading list, here’s the full story. Bowling suggests that everyone might encourage their local bookstores (and for that matter, libraries) to show support for banned books during Banned Books Week.

Weighing in on Wife-Wooing

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Patricia Abbott’s Feb. 9, 2022 blog entry featured John Updike’s “Wife-Wooing” as the topic. Abbott wrote, “These are some of my favorite stories. You watch a marriage fall apart over the course of the collection. ‘Giving Blood’ is my favorite.

“Favorite line. ‘Courting a wife takes tenfold the strength of winning an ignorant girl.’ How I wish he had used ‘innocent’ instead of ‘ignorant’.”

The post sparked a lively exchange of comments, among them:

“In one of the later Maple stories, the wife wants to have sex with her husband and he says, ‘It’s too far to go.’ That line shocked me when I read it. John Updike was one of the best book critics of his era. Political correctness now relegates Updike to the trash heap,” a person named George wrote.

Rick responded, “It’s all the amateur ‘critics’ on social media who should be reviled and put on the trash heap. I liked Rabbit Run, Of the Farm and The Witches of Eastwick. I haven’t read any short stories by him.”