{"id":2279,"date":"2014-07-11T09:15:07","date_gmt":"2014-07-11T14:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/?p=2279"},"modified":"2014-07-11T09:15:07","modified_gmt":"2014-07-11T14:15:07","slug":"playboy-writer-tells-of-updike-refusal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/2014\/07\/11\/playboy-writer-tells-of-updike-refusal\/","title":{"rendered":"Playboy writer tells of Updike refusal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/files\/2014\/07\/Screen-Shot-2014-07-11-at-9.16.14-AM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-2280\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/files\/2014\/07\/Screen-Shot-2014-07-11-at-9.16.14-AM-217x300.png\" alt=\"Screen Shot 2014-07-11 at 9.16.14 AM\" width=\"217\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a>The August 2014 issue of <strong><em>Harper&#8217;s Magazine<\/em> <\/strong>contains this <a href=\"http:\/\/harpers.org\/archive\/2014\/08\/letters-822\/\">letter<\/a> from writer Lawrence Grobel telling of Updike&#8217;s refusal to grant him an interview for <em>Playboy<\/em>:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rabbit, Refuse<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In his review of Adam Begley\u2019s biography of John Updike [\u201cAgreeable Angstrom,\u201d June], Jonathan Dee writes that Updike\u2019s \u201clife consisted of saying yes to everything, and of questioning nothing.\u201d I read that with amusement, remembering how I tried, for years, to get Updike to agree to a <em>Playboy<\/em> interview with me. I corresponded with him about it and went to see him when he gave a talk at the Los Angeles Public Library. I had previously done interviews with James A. Michener, Elmore Leonard, Joyce Carol Oates, and Saul Bellow, and I thought just mentioning these writers would clinch the deal, but when I said to Updike, \u201cSaul Bellow agreed,\u201d he just looked at me and smiled wryly. \u201cYes, I read it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><em>Lawrence Grobel<\/em><br \/>\nLos Angeles<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The August 2014 issue of Harper&#8217;s Magazine contains this letter from writer Lawrence Grobel telling of Updike&#8217;s refusal to grant him an interview for Playboy: Rabbit, Refuse In his review of Adam Begley\u2019s biography of John Updike [\u201cAgreeable Angstrom,\u201d June], &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/2014\/07\/11\/playboy-writer-tells-of-updike-refusal\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-person-singular"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2279"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2281,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2279\/revisions\/2281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}