John Updike Book order (chronological)

At the height of his literary prowess, Updike brings the Rabbit series to a poignant conclusion while reinterpreting Hawthorne's classic, The Scarlet Letter, in a modern context. This novel explores themes of guilt, redemption, and societal judgment, weaving a rich narrative that resonates with contemporary issues. Through complex characters and intricate storytelling, Updike reflects on the human condition and the moral dilemmas faced in today's world, offering a fresh perspective on timeless themes.

Exploring the complexities of the sexual revolution, this collection features three masterful novels that delve into themes of desire, identity, and societal change. Through rich character development and insightful storytelling, the work captures the joys and discontents experienced during a transformative era. The definitive edition by the Library of America showcases Updike's profound ability to intertwine personal narratives with broader cultural shifts, making it a significant contribution to American literature.

Newly available in paperback, this 20th anniversary edition of a Caldecott Honor classic combines the star power of John Updike and Trina Schart Hyman. Celebrate the little moments that make each month special in this beautiful picture book featuring twelve poems about a family and the turn of the seasons. From the short, frozen days of January, through the light of summer, to the first snowflakes of December, Updike's poems rejoices in the familiar, wondrous qualities that make each part of the year unique. Hyman's award-winning paintings--modeled after her own daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren--depict an interracial family going about the business of their lives throughout the year: sledding in January, watching fireworks in July, and playing in the autumn leaves. Bold and colorful, they're filled with the intricate detail for which her art is famous-- including cameo appearances by the artist and her partner, Jean Aull. Featuring a redesigned cover, the 20th Anniversary Edition of this inclusive Caldecott Honor book is a beautiful read-aloud to treasure throughout the year, with family and friends.

Mit John Updike die Kunst neu entdecken! Updike, der fast 30 Romane und zahlreiche Essays verfasste, beleuchtet in seinen Kunsttexten, die nun erstmals auf Deutsch vorliegen, verschiedene Themen von Vermeer bis Hopper. Seine Essays, veröffentlicht in renommierten Magazinen wie The New Republic und The New Yorker, bieten kluge Würdigungen der Künstler und ihrer Werke. Er führt uns durch spätgotische Gefühlswelten, reflektiert die Tragik van Goghs und erlebte mit Richard Estes die Energie der Großstadt. Updikes enge Verbindung zur Kunst begann in seiner Kindheit; nach seinem Anglistikstudium in Harvard besuchte er die Ruskin School of Art in Oxford, bevor er sich dem Schreiben widmete. Seine Kunstessays vereinen eine tief empfundene Nähe zur Malerei mit literarischem Geschick, was die Lektüre zu einem Genuss macht. Der Band ist nach europäischen und amerikanischen Künstlern gegliedert und enthält zahlreiche Abbildungen sowie ein Nachwort. Die Schriften zur Kunst von John Updike sind eine Fundgrube für Kunstliebhaber und erscheinen anlässlich seines 10. Todestags. Updikes präziser Kunstsinn und seine Fähigkeit, grundlegende menschliche Themen zu erfassen, machen ihn zu einem herausragenden Kritiker seiner Generation.

“Drinking a toast to the visible world, his impending disappearance from it be damned.” That’s how John Updike describes one of his elderly protagonists in this, his final collection of short stories. He might have been writing about himself. In My Father’s Tears, the author revisits his signature characters, places, and themes—Americans in suburbs, cities, and small towns grappling with faith and infidelity—in a gallery of portraits of his aging generation, men and women for whom making peace with the past is now paramount. The Seattle Times called My Father’s Tears “a haunting collection” that “echoes the melancholy of Chekhov, the romanticism of Wordsworth and the mournful spirit of Yeats.”

Digte. A collection of poems that John Updike wrote during the last seven years of his life and put together only weeks before he died for this, his final book. The opening sequence, "Endpoint," is made up of a series of connected poems written on the occasions of his recent birthdays and culminates in his confrontation with his final illness

«Der Sprache Schönheit abgewinnen»: John Updikes letzte Gedichte Der Band versammelt vom Augenblick angestoßene Themen: Golf, Filmstars, eine Mondfinsternis, amerikanische Städte und Landschaften, die Erinnerung an Freunde und Gefährten. Auch Grotesken wie «Der Tod eines Computers» und Beispiele des amerikanischen Genres light verse.

Die frühen Erzählungen von Updike zeigen vertraute und neue Themen, die die Grenzen des Erzählens überschreiten. Das Buch enthält 23 Geschichten, von denen 16 erstmals auf Deutsch veröffentlicht werden. Ein Muss für Nordamerika-Reisende und Literaturfreunde.

This collection of John Updike�s non-fiction writings includes a delightful preface, �Everything Considered�, in which he tells of his lifelong love affair with words; essays on travel, and on faith; introductions to some of the classics; reviews of lesser known foreign writers and new books by English and American contemporaries; as well as non-fiction topics from the sinking of the Lusitania to Coco Chanel's �unsinkable career�; tributes to legendary New Yorker figures, and much more. A cruise through the cultural waters of the past decade with as delightful, witty, sensitive and articulate a guide as you could hope for, Due Considerations is a voyage not to be missed.

The text examines the reign and recent fall of Ethiopia's Haile Selassie through eyewitness accounts of former members of the Emperor's circle.

The story follows eighteen-year-old Ahmad Ashmawy Mulloy, who grapples with his faith in a materialistic New Jersey town. The son of an Irish American mother and an absent Egyptian father, he finds solace in the teachings of his imam, resisting the distractions posed by peers like his guidance counselor and a classmate. Working at a local furniture store, Ahmad believes he has found his purpose, yet the narrative hints at a darker path as he contemplates the implications of his faith and the concept of divine plotting.

John Updike, a prominent American novelist and perennial Nobel Prize contender, reveals himself to German readers as a poet. His five-decade body of work explores themes related to the sea, offering straightforward yet elegant poetry filled with surprising insights on eroticism and politics.

From the pages of America’s most influential magazine come eight decades of holiday cheer–plus the occasional comical coal in the stocking–in one incomparable collection. Sublime and ridiculous, sentimental and searing, Christmas at The New Yorker is a gift of great writing and drawing by literary legends and laugh-out-loud cartoonists.Here are seasonal stories, poems, memoirs. and more, from a stellar roster of writers, including John Cheever, James Dickey, Richard Ford, Ken Kesey, Alice Munro, Vladimir Nabokov, S. J. Perelman, Adrienne Rich, and James Thurber. And it wouldn’t be Christmas–or The New Yorker–without dozens of covers and cartoons by Addams, Arno, Chast, and others, or the mischievous verse of Roger Angell, Calvin Trillin, and Ogden Nash (“Do you know Mrs. Millard Fillmore Revere? / On her calendar, Christmas comes three hundred and sixty-five times a year.”)From Jazz Age to New Age, E. B. White to Garrison Keillor, these works represent eighty years of wonderful keepsakes for Christmas, from The New Yorker to you.

Nobody has done more to chart American life through fiction over the last half-century than John Updike, and he is as much a master of the short story as of the novel as this collection proves. It contains: 'Nevada', 'Ethiopia' and 'I am dying, Egypt, dying'.

Owen Mackenzie�s life story abounds with sin and seduction, domesticity and debauchery. His marriage to his college sweetheart is quickly followed by his first betrayal and he embarks upon a series of affairs. His pursuit of happiness, in a succession of small towns from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts, brings him to the edge of chaos, from which he is saved by a rescue that carries its own fatal price.

The first and second novels in John Updike's acclaimed quartet of Rabbit books -- now in one marvelous volume. RABBIT, RUN"Brilliant and poignant . . . By his compassion, clarity of insight, and crystal-bright prose, [Updike] makes Rabbit's sorrow his and out own.The Washington Post"Precise, graceful, stunning, he is an athlete of words and images. He is also an impeccable observer of thoughts and feelings."The Village VoiceRABBIT REDUX"Great in love, in art, boldness, freedom, wisdom, kindness, exceedingly rich in intelligence, wit, imagination, and feeling -- a great and beautiful thing . . . these hyperboles (quoted from a letter written long ago by Thomas Mann) come to mind after reading John Updike's Rabbit Redux.The New York Times Book Review "Updike owns a rare verbal genius, a gifted intelligence and a sense of tragedy made bearable by wit. . . . A masterpiece.Time

The third and fourth novel in John Updike's acclaimed quartet of Rabbit books -- now in one marvelous volume. RABBIT IS RICHWinner of the American Book Award andthe National Book Critics Circle Award"Dazzlingly reaffirms Updike's place as master chronicler of the spiritual maladies and very earthly pleasure of the Middle-American male."Vogue"A splendid achievement!"The New York TimesRABBIT AT RESTWinner of the Pulitzer Prize andthe National Book Critics Circle Award"Brilliant . . . It must be read. It is the best novel about America to come out of America for a very, very long time."The Washington Post Book World"Powerful . . . John Updike with his precision's prose and his intimately attentive yet cold eye is a master."The New York Times Book Review

Since the Dark Ages, when Scots first played a form of golf, no sport has captivated its players and fans like this one. This book captures the essence of golf with a lively and authoritative history, stunning illustrations, and an exceptional collection of original writings. John Garrity, a senior writer for Sports Illustrated, offers a fresh take on golf's centuries-old narrative, exploring key personalities, pivotal events, advancements in technique and technology, and the global fascination with the game. The history is enriched by twenty personal essays from various literary low-handicappers, reflecting on topics such as the Age of Tiger, the challenges faced by club pros, the joy of winter golf, and the decision to step away from the sport. Accompanying the text are over 300 photographs and illustrations, including many rare and specially commissioned images, making this volume truly unique. Covering everything from the tee to the green and the clubhouse to the nuthouse, this book is an essential addition for anyone serious about understanding the game of golf.

Warum hört John Updike gerne Radio? Was hat er zu sagen, wenn er seinem eigenen Romanhelden Bech Rede und Antwort stehen muss? In seinen Kommentaren zum eigenen Werk erweist sich der Pulitzerpreisträger selbst die Ehre. Aber Updike wäre nicht Updike, würde nicht auch der Rest der schreibenden Zunft seiner scharfsinnigen, doch immer auch charmanten Aufmerksamkeit teilhaftig: Lob und Tadel für Momente vollkommenen Leseglücks und Leseleids.

On a spring day in Vermont, seventy-nine-year-old painter Hope Chafetz tells the story of her life to Kathryn, a young interviewer from New York. Questions send Hope back to her youth, to the heady postwar days of American art and her relationships with the artists who defined their times. As the day wears on, Kathryn and Hope - interviewer and interviewee - try to understand one another across the gulf of age, experience and time that lies between them. And subtly, as each comes to know the other, their relationship changes!

In seinen Essays räsonniert John Updike über die Befindlichkeit der amerikanischen Gesellschaft. Lässt den Geist von Gutenberg und Bill Gates auf der Frankfurter Buchmesse zusammentreffen. Erschafft einen Think Tank, in dem ein Marsianer und ein Erdling über Dichtung diskutieren. Und präsentiert Mickymaus als Ikone des 20. Jahrhunderts.

John Updike's first collection of verse since his Collected Poems, 1953-1993 brings together fifty-eight poems, three of them of considerable length. The four sections take up, in America, its cities and airplanes; the poet's life, his childhood, birthdays, and ailments; foreign travel, to Europe and the tropics; and, beginning with the long "Song of Myself," daily life, its furniture and consolations. There is little of the light verse with which Mr. Updike began his writing career nearly fifty years ago, but a light touch can be felt in his nimble manipulation of the ghosts of metric order, in his caressing of the living textures of things, and in his reluctance to wave goodbye to it all.

The collection features Henry Bech, John Updike's humorous alter-ego, who has entertained readers with his artistic indecision and vibrant sexuality since his debut in The New Yorker. These stories provide a playful yet affectionate exploration of a notoriously unproductive Jewish-American writer, showcasing Updike's signature wit and lyrical style. Included is a final story, "His Oeuvre," which serves as a fitting conclusion to Bech's literary journey, highlighting the charm and depth of this beloved character.

Explores corruption and atonement through a priest and the people he encounters as he flees the Mexican State which has outlawed the church. A theological thriller.

Using details from the ancient Scandinavian legends that were the inspiration for Hamlet, this tale brings to life Gertrude's girlhood as the daughter of King Rorik, her arranged marriage to the man who becomes King, and her middle- aged affair with her husband's younger brother. schovat popis

In this brilliant late-career collection, John Updike revisits many of the locales of his early fiction: the small-town Pennsylvania of Olinger Stories, the sandstone farmhouse of Of the Farm, the exurban New England of Couples and Marry Me, and Henry Bech’s Manhattan of artistic ambition and taunting glamour. To a dozen short stories spanning the American Century, the author has added a novella-length coda to his quartet of novels about Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom. Several strands of the Rabbit saga come together here as, during the fall and winter holidays of 1999, Harry’s survivors fitfully entertain his memory while pursuing their own happiness up to the edge of a new millennium. Love makes Updike’s fictional world go round—married love, filial love, feathery licks of erotic love, and love for the domestic particulars of Middle American life.

Including one new story and an Index by author of every story that has ever appeared in the series, this new volume offers a "spectacular tapestry of fictional achievement" ("Entertainment Weekly").

Set in a surreal literary landscape, the story follows Henry Bech, now in his seventies, as he navigates a changing world where his books are commercialized and fleeting. Despite his age, he remains competitive and self-absorbed, confronting critics with a mix of humor and defiance. Throughout five striking chapters, Bech's journey includes enacting revenge and ultimately winning a prestigious writing award, all while embodying a blend of grit and ennui in this mock-heroic exploration of a writer's life in modern America.

JOHN UPDIKE IS "A STYLIST OF THE HIGHEST ORDER, capable of illuminating the sublime in the mundane, thereby elevating all of human experience." --Chicago Tribune Toward the End of Time "is the journal of a 66-year-old man, Ben Turnbull . . . [which] reveals not only the world but the wanderings of his wits. . . . So what if he jumps from a United States in the next century, disintegrating after a war with China, to ancient Egypt, or to virtual reality? So what if characters appear and disappear like phantoms in a dream? . . . Turnbull's journal is like Walden gone haywire. . . . If Ben's ruthlessness is evenhanded, so is his alarming intelligence; it falls on every scene, person, object, and thought in the book, giving it an eerie ambiance." --The New York Times Book Review "A BOOK AIMED NOT TO RESOLVE BUT TO AROUSE A READER'S WONDER . . . Vintage Updike: marital angst worked out against the chilly backdrop of privilege, rendered with a lyricism and insight and eye for detail reminiscent of the work of Jane Austen." --The Miami Herald "WONDERFUL RUSHES OF NEAR-MELVILLEAN PROSE . . . Toward the End of Time has a force that gets under your skin." --New York Review of Books A Main Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club

Updikes Stories spiegeln eindrucksvoll, wie unterschiedlich Menschen sich durchs Leben hangeln: ihr Talent, Phrasen und Mißverständnisse zu produzieren, ihre Suche nach Anerkennung und Nähe. Die Kräfte, die zwei Menschen aneinanderbinden oder auseinandertreiben, sind manchmal geheimnisvoller als jeder Zaubertrick. Brigitte

"Golf Dreams" by John Updike is a collection of his reflections on golf spanning five decades. It features thirty pieces that explore the game's camaraderie, challenges, and nuances through lyrical essays, light verse, and humorous fiction, all infused with his passion for the sport.

Taking its title from the 'Battle Hymn of the Republic', In the Beauty of the Lilies traces one family's profound journey through four generations across the spiritual landscape of twentieth-century America. It is one of John Updike's fullest and finest works of fiction.

'The house of God' is the hilarious novel of the healing arts that reveals everything your doctor never wanted you to know. Six eager interns - they saw themselves as modern saviors-to-be. They came from the top of their medical school class to the bottom of the hospital staff to serve a year in the time-honored tradition, racing to answer the flash of on-duty call lights and nubile nurses. But only the Fat Man - the Clam, all-knowing resident - could sustain them in their struggle to survive, to stay sane, to love-and even to be doctors when their harrowing year was done.

These John Updike short stories include "Friends from Philadelphia", "Sunday Teasing", "The Persistence of Desire", "The Other Woman" and "Brother Grasshopper".

Newly revised by the author for this edition, and printed together in one volume for the first time, Updike's four Rabbit novels chronicle the history of a man and a nation from the 1950s to the 1980s. Harry 'Rabbit' Angstrom, athlete, is Mr Middle America. Dazzling in style, tender in feeling, often erotic in description and coruscating with realistic details which recreate a world in each novel, these books give a complete picture of their age.

In diesem Band hat John Updike die Fronten gewechselt und sich selbst ans Rühmen begeben - und ans Tadeln: Hymnen und Verrisse, Analysen und Biographisches über Umberto Eco, Tania Blixen, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Thomas Bernhard, Anne Tyler, Julian Barnes, Peter Handke, Philip Roth, Patrick Süskind u. a.

At the Diamond County Home for the Aged, the inmates prepare for the annual ritual of the Poorhouse Fair. The elderly residents take pride in the self-respect they gain from this one day. But when the fair goes less well than the folks had hoped, they blame Conner, the new prefect of the home. Together, they begin to revolt against the man.

Tristao Raposa, a 19-year-old black child of the Rio slums, spies Isabel Leme, an 18-year-old upper-class white girl, across the hot sands of Copocabana Beach, and presents her with a ring. Their flight into marriage takes them from urban banality to Brazil's wild west.

Gathers photographs of actors, actresses, musicians, composers, writers, and military, religious, and political leaders

Henry Bech, the celebrated author of Travel Light, has been scrutinized, canonized and vilified by critics and readers across the world. This work explores the writing life and what happens when a writer becomes a literary celebrity.

When junior college professor Alfred Clayton is asked to record his impressions of the Ford Administration, he recalls a turbulent piece of personal history as well. In a decade of sexual liberation, Clayton was facing a doomed marriage and the passionate beginnings of a futile affair with an unattainable Perfect Wife. But one memory begets another: Clayton's unfinished book on James Buchanan. In John Updike's fifteenth novel, he masterfully alternates between the two men, two lives, two American centuries—one Victorian, the other modern—shining an irreverent, witty, and sometimes caustic light on the contrasting views of social fictions and sexual politics....

John Updike präsentiert 25 Kurzgeschichten, die vom häuslichen Leben und seinen Störungen handeln. Er hofft, dass deutsche Leser in diesen Erzählungen Stimmungen und Gefühle finden, die ihnen vertraut sind, da ungestörtes Glück kein Thema für Geschichten ist.

Die Maples, seit einem Jahr verheiratet, erleben gemeinsam den Schnee in Greenwich Village, im Einklang miteinander und diese Harmonie genießend. Ein halbes Dutzend Jahre später muss Richard dann erkennen, dass die eigene Frau zu verführen wesentlich anstrengender ist als die Eroberung eines jungen Mädchens. Immer größere Entfremdung, Affären, Trennung, erneutes Sichnähern, Scheidung.

The trilogy comprises of Rabbit, Run, Rabbit Redux and Rabbit is Rich. It is intended as an amusing, sympathetic study of a man, Rabbit Angstron, putting up a fight against the inevitable.

Ein Roman der vorläufigen Gewißheiten vom wohl besten Chronisten der amerikanischen Middle Class. Die ungewöhnliche, meisterhaft erzählte Autobiographie des großen amerikanischen Autors.

Winner of the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In John Updike's fourth and final novel about ex-basketball player Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, the hero has acquired heart trouble, a Florida condo, and a second grandchild. His son and daughter-in-law are acting erratically, his wife Janice wants to work, and Rabbit is searching his soul, looking for reasons to live.

This stunning collection of 28 stories brings readers a literary portrait of the American family from 1894 to today. A collection of works that captures the essence of American families from living together and apart to loving and letting go.Regret / Kate Chopin --The lombardy poplar / Mary Wilkins Freeman --The widow's might / Charlotte Perkins Gilman --Old Rogaum and his Theresa / Theodore Dreiser --The sorrows of gin / John Cheever --I stand here ironing / Tillie Olsen --Simple and Counsin F.D. Roosevelt Brown / Langston Hughes --The sky is gray / Ernest J. Gaines --My Coney Island uncle / Harvey Swados --My son the murderer / Bernard Malamud --Final dwarf / Henry Roth --And Sarah laughed / Joanne Greenberg --Wedding day / Roberta Silman --The legacy of Beau Kremel / Stephen Wolf --Kiswana Brown / Gloria Naylor --Tuesdays / Mary Hedin --Afloat / Ann Beattie --Winterblossom garden / David Low --Old things / Bobbie Ann Mason --Starlight / Marian Thurm --The writer in the family / E.L. Doctorow --The rich brother / Tobias Wolff --My legacy / Don Zacharia --Violation / Mary Gordon --Appropriate affect / Sue Miller --What I did for love / Lynne Sharon Schwartz --Still of some use / John Updike --Elephant / Raymond Carver

New Englander Sarah Worth goes west to join a Hindu commune in Arizona. There she mingles with the other sannyasins (pilgrims) in the difficult attempt to subdue ego and achieve salvation and release from illusion.

Výbor z veršů předního amerického spisovatele

A collection of 22 short stories which share the theme of trust, mostly betrayed, but sometimes fulfilled

Ebenso klug wie in seinen Romanen äußert sich Updike in diesem Band über Literatur und Kulturgeschichte, über Architektur und den amerikanischen „Way of Life“. Den Schwerpunkt des Bandes bilden Updikes literarische Essays. Mit dem Sachverstand und dem geschärften Blick des Insiders gibt er neue Einblicke in die Werke berühmter Autoren von Flaubert und Joyce bis zu Böll und Kundera, macht mit verblüffender Leichtigkeit komplexe Zusammenhänge anschaulich und erweist sich nicht zuletzt als unerbittlicher und unbestechlicher Kritiker seines eigenen Werkes.

A collection of 4 US novels, published in Steinbeck - Of men and miceJames Jones - The pistolReynolds Price - A long and lappy lifeJohn Updike - Of the farm

Román Vezmi si ma, ktorý vyšiel v USA roku 1976, je ďalším významným dielom amerického prozaika, preloženým do viacerých jazykov. Ide o kritickorealistický príbeh, kde autor za pomoci irónie a satiry analyzuje súčasný americký život v jeho sociálnych súvislostiach. Sústreďuje sa tu najmä na pomery v modernej rodine, na ktorej osudoch sa odzrkadľujú najpálčivejšie problémy, konflikty a krízy spoločnosti, predovšetkým stredných vrstiev. Stredobodom sú dva manželské páry, ktoré sa domáhajú svojho práva na osobné šťastie. V centre príbehu stojí láska Jerryho a Sally, dvojice, ktorá sa usiluje usporiadať si život podľa vlastných predstáv, i keď pritom ohrozuje svoje rodiny. Najmä pri opise charakterov manželského štvoruholníka, ktorý dopĺňajú Richard a Ruth, Updike sa opäť prejavil ako dobrý znalec ľudskej psychológie s veľkým zmyslom pre humor.

At age 82, Clifton Fadiman continues his prolific publishing career, here presenting 62 of the world's best short stories from 16 countries. His criteria? "Each story had to be both interesting and of high literary merit." Fadiman fulfills both requirements and much more, offering a cornucopia of superior 20th-century writers that includes Franz Kafka, D. H. Lawrence, Isaac Babel, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, John Cheever, Sean O'Faolain, Graham Greene, Robert Penn Warren, Colette, John Updike, Donald Barthelme, and James Thurber. (Regrettably, J. D. Salinger is not included due to lack of permission.) Here is a truly remarkable collection of this century's short stories that readers from all over the world will read with delight.

As Roger Lambert tells it, he, a middle-aged professor of divinity, is buttonholed in his office by Dale Kohler, an earnest young computer scientist who believes that quantifiable evidence of God’s existence is irresistibly accumulating. The theological-scientific debate that ensues, and the wicked strategies that Roger employs to disembarrass Dale of his faith, form the substance of this novel—these and the current of erotic attraction that pulls Esther, Roger’s much younger wife, away from him and into Dale’s bed. The novel, a majestic allegory of faith and reason, ends also as a black comedy of revenge, for this is Roger’s version—Roger Chillingworth’s side of the triangle described by Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter —made new for a disbelieving age.

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism, Hugging the Shore is an enormously intelligent, witty collection of essays by John Updike. The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist sheds keen light on everything from the first kiss to going barefoot to the world's greatest writers. First time in paper.

Toward the end of the Vietnam era, in a snug little Rhode Island seacoast town, wonderful powers have descended upon Alexandra, Jane, and Sukie, bewitching divorcées with sudden access to all that is female, fecund, and mysterious. Alexandra, a sculptor, summons thunderstorms; Jane, a cellist, floats on the air; and Sukie, the local gossip columnist, turns milk into cream. Their happy little coven takes on new, malignant life when a dark and moneyed stranger, Darryl Van Horne, refurbishes the long-derelict Lenox mansion and invites them in to play. Thenceforth scandal flits through the darkening, crooked streets of Eastwick—and through the even darker fantasies of the town’s collective psyche. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Updikův román Chceš si mne vzít? (Marry Me, 1976) patří k těm jeho dílům, které se zabývají mezilidskými vztahy a především krizí moderního manželství (stejně jako román Dvojice a povídková sbírka Manželé a milenci a byl napsán krátce po rozpadu jeho prvního manželství, který jej nepochybně značně poznamenal). Je to příběh v podstatě čtyř protagonistů, zmatených a tápajících, hledajících obyčejné lidské štěstí. Domáhají se jej ale sobecky na úkor druhých – ani ne tak z neodpovědnosti, je to spíš projev lidské slabosti. Negativita rozpadů vztahu je ale současně vyrovnávána snahou o budování vztahů nových, postavených na pevnějších základech. Mikrosvět manželských vztahů včetně jeho krizí je díky jeho stylistickým kvalitám a perfektnímu zvládání detailů a jejich sestavení do funkčního celku (a nepochybně i jeho osobní zkušenosti) přestaven tak, že působí jako symbolický obraz stavu celé americké společnosti, aniž by ztratil schopnost působit na čtenáře zažitě a upřímně.

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