{"id":6869,"date":"2026-02-05T07:39:25","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T13:39:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/?p=6869"},"modified":"2026-02-05T07:39:25","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T13:39:25","slug":"writer-says-updike-changed-his-literary-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/2026\/02\/05\/writer-says-updike-changed-his-literary-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Writer says Updike changed his literary life"},"content":{"rendered":"

William J. Donahue just published a piece on his blog that first appeared in the fall\/winter 2024 edition of Neshaminy: The Bucks County Historical and Literary Journal<\/em> as part of a feature story about John Updike, who was born in adjacent Berks County.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>In “The Writer Who Changed Me More Than Any Other,”<\/a> Donahue wrote, “Prior to the summer of 2009, the name John Updike meant almost nothing to me. All I knew was that he belonged to a certain class of writer\u2014white, male, and, as of January 27 of that year, dead.”<\/p>\n

“Everything changed when a college professor friend introduced me to one of Updike’s best-known short stories, ‘A&P,'” he wrote. “A coming-of-age story about herring snacks, Queenie’s scandalously bare shoulders, and Sammy’s gesture of occupational seppuku, ‘A&P’ opened my eyes to something new. It also compelled me to explore Updike’s short-story collections, followed by his longer works: the Rabbit novels, Couples<\/em>, Of the Farm<\/em>, Marry Me<\/em>, S.<\/em>, A Month of Sundays<\/em>, etc. His novel-slash-collection The Maples Stories<\/em>, which catalogs the adolescence, life, death, and afterlife of a specific New England couple’s marriage, had the greatest impact on me.<\/p>\n

“Like his other novels, Maples<\/em> features rich prose that reminds me of a well-crafted poem. The story follows Joan and Richard Maple, imperfect spouses who struggle and persevere, expand and contract, destroy themselves, and then find their respective paths to post-divorce reinvention. As someone who spent much of his thirties wrestling with his own personal and professional bugbears, I found Maples inspiring, if not prescriptive.”<\/p>\n

Read the whole article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

William J. Donahue just published a piece on his blog that first appeared in the fall\/winter 2024 edition of Neshaminy: The Bucks County Historical and Literary Journal as part of a feature story about John Updike, who was born in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":818,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6869","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\/6869","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\/818"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6869"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6872,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6869\/revisions\/6872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}