R.I.P.: John Updike

John Updike in 1955 Photo Credit: the Guardian

I have relatively recently discovered John Updike. His Rabbit character in Rabbit, Run was particularly influential for me. May he rest in peace…

John Updike, novelist, man of letters and erudite chronicler of sex, divorce, and life’s adventures, is dead… more»

John Updike dies at 76 Prolific chronicler of the loves and losses of small-town America dies after battle with lung cancer Martin Amis: Another plane of intimacy Editorial: In praise of … John Updike Obituary: John Updike

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John Updike, novelist, man of letters and erudite chronicler of sex, divorce, and life’s adventures, is dead… AP … NYT … Telegraph … Guardian … NYT … London Times … WP … New Yorker … LA Times … Guardian … TPM … Boston Globe … London Times … National Post … WSJ … LA Times … Guardian … Forbes … SF Chron … Slate … Guardian … Philly Inq … TLS … Independent

John Updike: singing America, James Schiff

In literature

I was in class with ten students on the afternoon of 27 January 2009, teaching a graduate seminar titled "Updike and Atwood", when my phone buzzed. I ignored it and all subsequent vibrations because our discussion of Rabbit, Run was going well. It wasn’t until break (it’s a three-hour class) that I read the text messages: John Updike had died. I was devastated. We had just been discussing the raw kinetic energy, zigzag structure and lyrical passages of his first "Rabbit" novel. Someone had even commented on how alive the novel felt. Now, suddenly, Updike was gone. I somehow got through the second half of class, in part by showing a video of Updike, as if, perhaps, to resurrect him. Yet I was in shock, and further unsettled by the snowstorm outside our window and a low-grade fever I was running from a bad cold.