Authors: John Updike
The Early Stories (147 page)
She would refuse. This tiny refusal stunned him. A blow to the heart. They must be perfect with each other, they must. He would beg. He had wagered his whole life, his happiness and the happiness of the world around him, on this, this little monkey's stunt she would not do. Just one word. “Realtor.”
Still she refused, primly, princesslike; her eyes brushed by his in a terrible icy hurry. He could pronounce “realtor” if he wanted, she chose not to.
She had her severe limitations.
And yet, and yet. One forenoon, unforeseen, he felt her beside him and she was of a piece, his. They were standing somewhere, in a run-down section of the city, themselves tired, looking at nothing, and her presence beside him was like the earth's beneath his feet, continuous, extensive, and dry, there by its own rights, unthinkingly assumed to be there. She had become his wife.
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POEMS
The Carpentered Hen
(1958)
⢠Telephone Poles
(1963)
⢠Midpoint
(1969)
⢠Tossing and Turning
(1977)
⢠Facing Nature
(1985)
⢠Collected Poems 1953â1993
(1993)
⢠Americana
(2001)
⢠Endpoint
(2009)
NOVELS
The Poorhouse Fair
(1959)
⢠Rabbit, Run
(1960)
⢠The Centaur
(1963)
⢠Of the Farm
(1965)
⢠Couples
(1968)
⢠Rabbit Redux
(1971)
⢠A Month of Sundays
(1975)
⢠Marry Me
(1976)
⢠The Coup
(1978)
⢠Rabbit Is Rich
(1981)
⢠The Witches of Eastwick
(1984)
⢠Roger's Version
(1986)
⢠S
. (1988)
⢠Rabbit at Rest
(1990)
⢠Memories of the Ford Administration
(1992)
⢠Brazil
(1994)
⢠In the Beauty of the Lilies
(1996)
⢠Toward the End of Time
(1997)
⢠Gertrude and Claudius
(2000)
⢠Seek My Face
(2002)
⢠Villages
(2004)
⢠Terrorist
(2006)
⢠The Widows of Eastwick
(2008)
SHORT STORIES
The Same Door
(1959)
⢠Pigeon Feathers
(1962)
⢠Olinger Stories
(a selection, 1964)
⢠The Music School
(1966)
⢠Bech: A Book
(1970)
⢠Museums and Women
(1972)
⢠Problems
(1979)
⢠Too Far to Go
(a selection, 1979)
⢠Bech Is Back
(1982)
⢠Trust Me
(1987)
⢠The Afterlife
(1994)
⢠Bech at Bay
(1998)
⢠Licks of Love
(2000)
⢠The Complete Henry Bech
(2001)
⢠The Early Stories: 1953â1975
(2003)
⢠My Father's Tears
(2009)
⢠The Maples Stories
(2009)
ESSAYS AND CRITICISM
Assorted Prose
(1965)
⢠Picked-Up Pieces
(1975)
⢠Hugging the Shore
(1983)
⢠Just Looking
(1989)
⢠Odd Jobs
(1991)
⢠Golf Dreams
(1996)
⢠More Matter
(1999)
⢠Still Looking
(2005)
⢠Due Considerations
(2007)
⢠Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu
(2010)
⢠Higher Gossip
(2011)
| PLAY | MEMOIRS |
| Buchanan Dying (1974) | Self-Consciousness (1989) |
CHILDREN'S BOOKS
The Magic Flute
(1962)
⢠The Ring
(1964)
⢠A Child's Calendar
(1965)
⢠Bottom's Dream
(1969)
⢠A Helpful Alphabet of Friendly Objects
(1996)
John Updike was born in Shillington, Pennsylvania, in 1932. He graduated from Harvard College in 1954 and spent a year in Oxford, England, at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art. From 1955 to 1957 he was a member of the staff of
The New Yorker
. His novels have won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Rosenthal Foundation Award, and the William Dean Howells Medal. In 2007 he received the Gold Medal for Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. John Updike died in January 2009.
