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John Updike: The Collected Stories: A Library of America Boxed Set
From his first collection, The Same Door, released in 1959, to his last, My Father’s Tears, published fifty years later, John Updike was America’s reigning master of the short story, "our second Hawthorne,” as Philip Roth described him. His evocations of small-town Pennsylvania life, and of his own religious, artistic, and sexual awakening, transfixed readers of The New Yorker and of the early collections Pigeon Feathers (1962) and The Music School (1966). In these and the works that followed—the formal experiments and wickedly tart tales of suburban adultery in Museums and Women (1972) and Problems (1979), the portraits of middle-aged couples in love and at war with aging parents and rebellious children in Trust Me (1987) and The Afterlife (1994), and the fugue-like stories of memory, desire, travel, and unquenched thirst for life in Licks of Love (2000) and My Father’s Tears (2009)—Updike displayed the virtuosic command of character, dialogue, and sensual description that was his signature.
Here, in two career-spanning volumes, are 186 unforgettable stories, from "Ace in the Hole” (1953), a sketch of a Rabbit-like ex-basketball player written when Updike was a Harvard senior, to "The Full Glass” (2008), the author’s toast to the visible world, his own impending disappearance from it be damned.” Based on new archival research, each story is presented in its final definitive form and in order of composition, established here for the first time. This unprecedented collection of American masterpieces is not just the publishing event of the season, it is a national literary treasure.
Here, in two career-spanning volumes, are 186 unforgettable stories, from "Ace in the Hole” (1953), a sketch of a Rabbit-like ex-basketball player written when Updike was a Harvard senior, to "The Full Glass” (2008), the author’s toast to the visible world, his own impending disappearance from it be damned.” Based on new archival research, each story is presented in its final definitive form and in order of composition, established here for the first time. This unprecedented collection of American masterpieces is not just the publishing event of the season, it is a national literary treasure.
1949 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1971
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About the author
John Updike
870 books2,461 followersJohn Hoyer Updike was an American writer. Updike's most famous work is his Rabbit series (Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit Is Rich; Rabbit At Rest; and Rabbit Remembered). Rabbit is Rich and Rabbit at Rest both won Pulitzer Prizes for Updike. Describing his subject as "the American small town, Protestant middle class," Updike is well known for his careful craftsmanship and prolific writing, having published 22 novels and more than a dozen short story collections as well as poetry, literary criticism and children's books. Hundreds of his stories, reviews, and poems have appeared in The New Yorker since the 1950s. His works often explore sex, faith, and death, and their inter-relationships.
He died of lung cancer at age 76.
He died of lung cancer at age 76.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 29, 2015
Wow, well over six months reading Updike short stories. In truth I read these stories in spurts, with the last three hundred pages being finished in the last week. I wanted to savor what is likely the last Updike I shall read. This man was incredibly gifted, prolific in the extreme with novels, essays, reviews, poetry and more but it seems that the short story might be his best writing. Having read two massive collections of his I find it hard to think anyone has ever done it better. Of course as The Rabbit Angstrom series might be the best literature of the second half of the twentieth century one could spend a great deal of time arguing with oneself over the greater talent of John Updike.
This collection from his later years does seem to focus on subject matter appropriate to where Updike was in his life. Nostalgia, memory, second marriages, the disappointments of grown children, these all figure large in these stories. Many of the characters, though under different circumstances in individual stories all harken back to Updike's own history. The character will be from what was rural Pennsylvania, his Father a teacher, the family having moved from town to the family's dilapidated farm outside town. In these stories Updike's characters have a common history but they all look backwards and forwards in different ways.
I will make mention of the stories most meaningful to me.
In " Domestic Life in America" we see the first of many stories focusing on the family after divorce, the still warm furnace of the first marriage, the snippety kids, and the jealous second lovers.
" The Egg Race" brings our narrator back to rural Hayesville for his twentieth class reunion while " The Parade" returns him to the same town to,be an honored guest at a hometown parade as a semi celebrity.
"Morocco" gives us a family, thinking themselves cosmopolitan, traveling through that country with their young family. While not the hotbed and danger it would be today, they still have many adventures.
" More Stately Mansions " is the first tornado story. So good in its setting and place, the characters so exact, that nothing you read will ever match up when describing the same time period. During the late sixties a city couple move to Pennsylvania where Frank teaches. The husband a lawyer, the wife a substitute teacher. She and Frank loudly debate The Vietnam War in the teachers room, Frank feels bad for LBJ. Eventually the tension leads to a spark and an affair that burns so hot Frank is ready to give up his marriage. She is not, however, she confesses her sins to her husband, they move away and Frank continues his life on its set path. The story ends when the husband, the lawyer, Alan, returns to town in his old age. Divorced, dying of cancer, Francis pays a visit to Alan out of a sense of obligation. It is not an easy meeting.
" Still of Some Use" is a short four pager reeking of nostalgia. Foster is helping his ex-wife, her new husband, and his teenage son, clean out the attic of their former, her current home. Each object being thrown away cuts like a knife of what was, what could have been, and what will never be.
In " First Wives and Trolley Cars " the narrator reflects on his boyhood town in Pennsylvania. Movies and early television and especially refers to a trolley ride when he was a young boy, taken with his Mother, in which he got sick, but strove to make it to their designated stop before he got ill. This is an event referenced a few times in various stories.
"One More Interview " is a well known story based on a real experience of Updike's when, consenting to a rare interview, he takes the wheel,of the interviewers car and like a purging takes the reporter around the town of his youth and talks him to death.
" Made in Heaven" tells the story of a marriage. Brad at 29 meets a woman in the office, four years his junior. They match in all but her fervor for religion. Brad attempts to share this, faking it until it actually does become part of who he is. We are narrated through the mid century, the raising of four children, grandchildren, retirement, Nixon, until the wife becomes ill with cancer. Surprisingly to him she rebukes the Minister who comes to call acknowledging that religion is " too much bother " and he " believes enough for both of them."
" Leaf Season " is another story that feels like you as a reader could just step into. Five couples from the city, longtime friends, each year spend a weekend at one of their's farmhouse in Vermont. As the couples and their children age not all of their ritualized events age as well as they would like but the spirit of nostalgia does insist on the course being followed. A lengthy story, perfectly written, almost pre Big Chill like.
At some point Updike must have been having his battles with modern technology as he wrote two separate stories about the travails of modern burglar alarms. Both " The Burglar Alarm " and " The Spat " do so.
" The Football Factory " narrates a dignitary's trip through just that, where they manufacture footballs. We see the various steps to making a football and learn about the people who run the various machines. A subsequent story " Part of the Process " expounds on the original story and introduces us to June Mae, one of the workers, as she embarks on a new relationship with a fellow worker.
" The Man who Became a Soprano " is a better than you would expect from the premise story of a group of neighbors and townspeople who form a recorder group. The group of musicians meet weekly and over the years the set becomes a big part of each other's lives.
" A Sandstone Farmhouse " touches on a consistent topic of Updike's over the latter part of his writing. Joey reminisces about his life after moving to his Mother's family farm when he was thirteen. Later in life, well past middle age, he is cleaning out this house after his Mother's death. This gives him plenty of time for remembering.
We all grow up with certain objects in our lives that, later, if we are lucky, will have meaning for us if and when they are passed down to us. In " The Brown Chest " Updike follows an object through his family until he is in the position to bestow it on someone himself. Interesting how he notes that often objects desired by husbands from their youth are relegated as unusable by their wives sense of fashion. A true statement.
"Lunch Hour" returns to the class reunion, this time a 40th. Our narrator David Kern in pleased to see Julia, a girl he cared for long ago. It reminds him of lunch hours off campus with a group she was part of. Fun and freedom in their first grown up instances. What would shock today's students the most would be a 55 minute lunch period.
" The Walk With Elizanne" is one of the best stories in this collection. Reeking of nostalgia our narrator, again at a class reunion, his fiftieth, is pleased to see Elizanne a girl he remembers well. Having never come to a reunion before the sight of her brings memories quickly. As the night ends she approaches and him and thanks him for the memory of his being her first kiss. Now he really does remember and that night, more than fifty years later, laying in a hotel bed next to his wife he marvels that he can remember it so plainly like he is living it again. This struck a deep chord in me.
In another of the stronger stories he ever wrote Updike tackles the subject of 9/11 in " Varieties of Religious Experience." Seen from the angles of various people, witnesses and participants, this story still hits home.
" The Road Home " has David Kern again returning home to Pennsylvania. Not to a reunion but just checking in on the family acreage he still owns that he rents out to a former classmate to farm. He remembers his youth, his Mother's strong presence while he grew up. Later, having arranged to meet a few classmates for dinner, he struggles in the heavy rain and traffic to find the location. He feels old. The dinner is nice but, after telling his friends of his driving adventure, they insist he follow them back to his hotel so as to not get lost. As he follows them into the more familiar sections of his hometown he regrets the escort raging that he knows where he is without their help.
" My Father's Tears " was the title story in a late,collection of Updike's. One of his best stories, it begins with the narrator remembering the only time he saw his Father cry. This was one weekend, home from college, his Father drove him to the train station to return to Boston. The lights of the train station caught his Father's glistening eyes as he sent his son away into the world. The author then tells us of his life with his first wife and compares the differences in his Father and hers, a Unitarian Minister who became his Father in Law. Early in the relationship his wife, then girlfriend, struggles against the conservative strictures of his parents life. Her Father might be a Minister but Unitarian seems hardly a religion to his Mother. We see the narrators Father die, then his divorce. Later, he and his new wife attend his 55th class reunion and he marvels at the love in the room, the shared experience that still holds them together. One suspects in this age of Facebook class reunions will never be as necessary or have the same impact as they did on those of Updike's graduation. A favorite quote in this story, " It is easy to love people in memory; the hard thing is to love them when they are there in front of you. "
And finally in the collections last piece " The Full Glass" the author, or should I say narrator, addresses being almost eighty. The enjoyment of the rituals of life, the glass half full view that he feels he has tried to take through his life.
There might never be another wordsmith as talented as John Updike.
This collection from his later years does seem to focus on subject matter appropriate to where Updike was in his life. Nostalgia, memory, second marriages, the disappointments of grown children, these all figure large in these stories. Many of the characters, though under different circumstances in individual stories all harken back to Updike's own history. The character will be from what was rural Pennsylvania, his Father a teacher, the family having moved from town to the family's dilapidated farm outside town. In these stories Updike's characters have a common history but they all look backwards and forwards in different ways.
I will make mention of the stories most meaningful to me.
In " Domestic Life in America" we see the first of many stories focusing on the family after divorce, the still warm furnace of the first marriage, the snippety kids, and the jealous second lovers.
" The Egg Race" brings our narrator back to rural Hayesville for his twentieth class reunion while " The Parade" returns him to the same town to,be an honored guest at a hometown parade as a semi celebrity.
"Morocco" gives us a family, thinking themselves cosmopolitan, traveling through that country with their young family. While not the hotbed and danger it would be today, they still have many adventures.
" More Stately Mansions " is the first tornado story. So good in its setting and place, the characters so exact, that nothing you read will ever match up when describing the same time period. During the late sixties a city couple move to Pennsylvania where Frank teaches. The husband a lawyer, the wife a substitute teacher. She and Frank loudly debate The Vietnam War in the teachers room, Frank feels bad for LBJ. Eventually the tension leads to a spark and an affair that burns so hot Frank is ready to give up his marriage. She is not, however, she confesses her sins to her husband, they move away and Frank continues his life on its set path. The story ends when the husband, the lawyer, Alan, returns to town in his old age. Divorced, dying of cancer, Francis pays a visit to Alan out of a sense of obligation. It is not an easy meeting.
" Still of Some Use" is a short four pager reeking of nostalgia. Foster is helping his ex-wife, her new husband, and his teenage son, clean out the attic of their former, her current home. Each object being thrown away cuts like a knife of what was, what could have been, and what will never be.
In " First Wives and Trolley Cars " the narrator reflects on his boyhood town in Pennsylvania. Movies and early television and especially refers to a trolley ride when he was a young boy, taken with his Mother, in which he got sick, but strove to make it to their designated stop before he got ill. This is an event referenced a few times in various stories.
"One More Interview " is a well known story based on a real experience of Updike's when, consenting to a rare interview, he takes the wheel,of the interviewers car and like a purging takes the reporter around the town of his youth and talks him to death.
" Made in Heaven" tells the story of a marriage. Brad at 29 meets a woman in the office, four years his junior. They match in all but her fervor for religion. Brad attempts to share this, faking it until it actually does become part of who he is. We are narrated through the mid century, the raising of four children, grandchildren, retirement, Nixon, until the wife becomes ill with cancer. Surprisingly to him she rebukes the Minister who comes to call acknowledging that religion is " too much bother " and he " believes enough for both of them."
" Leaf Season " is another story that feels like you as a reader could just step into. Five couples from the city, longtime friends, each year spend a weekend at one of their's farmhouse in Vermont. As the couples and their children age not all of their ritualized events age as well as they would like but the spirit of nostalgia does insist on the course being followed. A lengthy story, perfectly written, almost pre Big Chill like.
At some point Updike must have been having his battles with modern technology as he wrote two separate stories about the travails of modern burglar alarms. Both " The Burglar Alarm " and " The Spat " do so.
" The Football Factory " narrates a dignitary's trip through just that, where they manufacture footballs. We see the various steps to making a football and learn about the people who run the various machines. A subsequent story " Part of the Process " expounds on the original story and introduces us to June Mae, one of the workers, as she embarks on a new relationship with a fellow worker.
" The Man who Became a Soprano " is a better than you would expect from the premise story of a group of neighbors and townspeople who form a recorder group. The group of musicians meet weekly and over the years the set becomes a big part of each other's lives.
" A Sandstone Farmhouse " touches on a consistent topic of Updike's over the latter part of his writing. Joey reminisces about his life after moving to his Mother's family farm when he was thirteen. Later in life, well past middle age, he is cleaning out this house after his Mother's death. This gives him plenty of time for remembering.
We all grow up with certain objects in our lives that, later, if we are lucky, will have meaning for us if and when they are passed down to us. In " The Brown Chest " Updike follows an object through his family until he is in the position to bestow it on someone himself. Interesting how he notes that often objects desired by husbands from their youth are relegated as unusable by their wives sense of fashion. A true statement.
"Lunch Hour" returns to the class reunion, this time a 40th. Our narrator David Kern in pleased to see Julia, a girl he cared for long ago. It reminds him of lunch hours off campus with a group she was part of. Fun and freedom in their first grown up instances. What would shock today's students the most would be a 55 minute lunch period.
" The Walk With Elizanne" is one of the best stories in this collection. Reeking of nostalgia our narrator, again at a class reunion, his fiftieth, is pleased to see Elizanne a girl he remembers well. Having never come to a reunion before the sight of her brings memories quickly. As the night ends she approaches and him and thanks him for the memory of his being her first kiss. Now he really does remember and that night, more than fifty years later, laying in a hotel bed next to his wife he marvels that he can remember it so plainly like he is living it again. This struck a deep chord in me.
In another of the stronger stories he ever wrote Updike tackles the subject of 9/11 in " Varieties of Religious Experience." Seen from the angles of various people, witnesses and participants, this story still hits home.
" The Road Home " has David Kern again returning home to Pennsylvania. Not to a reunion but just checking in on the family acreage he still owns that he rents out to a former classmate to farm. He remembers his youth, his Mother's strong presence while he grew up. Later, having arranged to meet a few classmates for dinner, he struggles in the heavy rain and traffic to find the location. He feels old. The dinner is nice but, after telling his friends of his driving adventure, they insist he follow them back to his hotel so as to not get lost. As he follows them into the more familiar sections of his hometown he regrets the escort raging that he knows where he is without their help.
" My Father's Tears " was the title story in a late,collection of Updike's. One of his best stories, it begins with the narrator remembering the only time he saw his Father cry. This was one weekend, home from college, his Father drove him to the train station to return to Boston. The lights of the train station caught his Father's glistening eyes as he sent his son away into the world. The author then tells us of his life with his first wife and compares the differences in his Father and hers, a Unitarian Minister who became his Father in Law. Early in the relationship his wife, then girlfriend, struggles against the conservative strictures of his parents life. Her Father might be a Minister but Unitarian seems hardly a religion to his Mother. We see the narrators Father die, then his divorce. Later, he and his new wife attend his 55th class reunion and he marvels at the love in the room, the shared experience that still holds them together. One suspects in this age of Facebook class reunions will never be as necessary or have the same impact as they did on those of Updike's graduation. A favorite quote in this story, " It is easy to love people in memory; the hard thing is to love them when they are there in front of you. "
And finally in the collections last piece " The Full Glass" the author, or should I say narrator, addresses being almost eighty. The enjoyment of the rituals of life, the glass half full view that he feels he has tried to take through his life.
There might never be another wordsmith as talented as John Updike.
October 9, 2018
The purpose of art, according to Updike, was 'to give the mundane it's beautiful due'. That is what is entire oeuvre is about. Some people find this ability to pinpoint the most mundane of things brilliant, for others a larger landscape is more worthy of engaging. Updike is for the former. Like Alice Munro, or Flannery O' Connor. There's no grand scheme of things here, no great plot unravelling. Just the utter pointlessness and waste of everyday life. That is his art.
September 1, 2025
Sehr gute Kurzgeschichten. Pfiffig, guter Blick. Die gesellschaftliche oder zwischenmenschliche Entwicklung kommt gut zum Vorschein, und zwar gekonnt nebenbei.
February 23, 2015
This was Updike at his worst. I like Updike's other works but did not like these short stories at all.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews