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The Same Door
The title of John Updike’s first short story collection, published when the author was twenty-seven, alludes to the old superstition that you should enter and leave a house by the same door. Thus John Nordholm, the alternately shy and brash hero of the first story here, is also the narrator of the last. Yet there is a sense in which all sixteen of these stories knock at the same door, a door that in “Dentistry and Doubt” swings open, and in “Toward Evening” remains shut. The characters are polite, nervous, diffident, as if life—or at least youth, for they are all young—were a discomfiting wait in the anteroom of the absolute. The majority of these stories depict encounters between strangers and their unexpected effects, which can be as concrete as a roomful of flowers or a bottle of wine, or as intangible as a miracle or a dream.
185 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1959
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About the author
John Updike
862 books2,431 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 - 30 of 33 reviews
June 20, 2021
The Same Door is a book about seemingly negligible trivia of day-to-day living but John Updike as a raconteur is very subtle psychologically and subtly ironic…
If only all the family quarrels ended like this… There is a whole gamut of the relationships: the rich and the poor, the clever and the stupid, winners and losers, parents and children, altruists and crooks, husbands and wives, boys and girls… There are works and workdays, coming of age and schooldays, rows and reconciliations, petty miseries and tiny joys… Vicissitudes of married life and first love…
Often love comes in a strange disguise.
The radio came in on something slow and tinkly: dinner music. Ace picked Bonnie up and set her in the crib. “Shall we dance?” he asked his wife, bowing.
“We need to talk.”
“Baby. It’s the cocktail hour.”
“This is getting us no place,” she said, rising from her chair, though.
In her crib, Bonnie whimpered at the sight of her mother being seized. Ace fitted his hand into the natural place on Evey’s back and she shuffled stiffly into his lead. When, with a sudden injection of saxophones, the tempo quickened, he spun her out carefully, keeping the beat with his shoulders. Her hair brushed his lips as she minced in, then swung away, to the end of his arm; he could feel her toes dig into the carpet. He flipped his own hair back from his eyes. The music ate through his skin and mixed with the nerves and small veins; he seemed to be great again, and all the other kids were around them, in a ring, clapping time.
If only all the family quarrels ended like this… There is a whole gamut of the relationships: the rich and the poor, the clever and the stupid, winners and losers, parents and children, altruists and crooks, husbands and wives, boys and girls… There are works and workdays, coming of age and schooldays, rows and reconciliations, petty miseries and tiny joys… Vicissitudes of married life and first love…
That night he had the dream. He must have dreamed it while lying there asleep in the morning light, for it was fresh in his head when he woke. They had been in a jungle. Joan, dressed in a torn sarong, was swimming in a clear river among alligators. Somehow, as if from a tree, he was looking down, and there was a calmness in the way the slim girl and the green alligators moved, in and out, perfectly visible under the window-skin of the water. Joan’s face sometimes showed the horror she was undergoing and sometimes looked numb. Her hair trailed behind and fanned when her face came toward the surface. He shouted silently with grief. Then he had rescued her…
Often love comes in a strange disguise.
May 20, 2015
I somehow couldn’t relate to the only previous work of Updike I had been exposed to - A Father’s Tears and Other Stories’ - most probably as it is are of his later works and therefore most of the stories deal with aging, and facing mortality and the death of others. I’m only 36, and in that strange place where there’s still plenty left to look forward to in life but where even recent memories still give me pangs of longing.
I guess this is precisely why I loved this Updike collection (and especially stories such as ‘The Happiest I’ve Been’ and ‘His Finest Hour’), which is mostly about youth experienced, youth remembered, and the preciousness of memories.
Like most post-war American writers such as Salinger and Cheever, Updike writes tenderly, lovingly, deeply and insightfully about the world around him, transforming even the most mundane situations, such as a reunion between friends, or a game of golf, into something alive and deeply human. Like Bellow, he enjoys using profound and abstract metaphors, but manages to retain a sense of warmth.
I guess this is precisely why I loved this Updike collection (and especially stories such as ‘The Happiest I’ve Been’ and ‘His Finest Hour’), which is mostly about youth experienced, youth remembered, and the preciousness of memories.
Like most post-war American writers such as Salinger and Cheever, Updike writes tenderly, lovingly, deeply and insightfully about the world around him, transforming even the most mundane situations, such as a reunion between friends, or a game of golf, into something alive and deeply human. Like Bellow, he enjoys using profound and abstract metaphors, but manages to retain a sense of warmth.
May 9, 2020
Like most of Updike, the language of these stories, word by word by word, is strange and musical and stealthily poetic, while fronting as natural, ordinary, and everyday. The later stories (beginning with "His Finest Hour") are much better than the earlier ones, and stand up to or even require your most patient attention and careful reading. They can also create many complications in one's mind and soul.
One of them appalled me ("A Gift From the City"), even as it astounded me with its sly, malicious life-force (as, I am certain, was its original intent, though seriously, it is almost unreadable and ultimately untenable). Another of them ("Intercession") compelled me to, temporarily, care about golf, a sport I ordinarily despise. The last story ("The Happiest I've Been") seemed to say farewell to all that had come before, in life and in story; it seemed like it wanted to introduce us to all that was to come, and how bright and mysterious all of our futures would be.
One of them appalled me ("A Gift From the City"), even as it astounded me with its sly, malicious life-force (as, I am certain, was its original intent, though seriously, it is almost unreadable and ultimately untenable). Another of them ("Intercession") compelled me to, temporarily, care about golf, a sport I ordinarily despise. The last story ("The Happiest I've Been") seemed to say farewell to all that had come before, in life and in story; it seemed like it wanted to introduce us to all that was to come, and how bright and mysterious all of our futures would be.
March 20, 2009
This is John Updike's first published set of short stories and they are lovely. I hadn't read short stories in a while and I'd forgotten how such a brief dip into a story can be so satisfying. The author draws a very small part of a vast story and you fill in some of the gaps and are left wondering about the rest.
My favorite story was probably "Ace in the Hole" which is about a kid who is just a few years out of high school but is already looking back on glory days and feeling dissatisfied with his life. The plot isn't new, but Updike's writing makes it fresh and it feels real.
My favorite story was probably "Ace in the Hole" which is about a kid who is just a few years out of high school but is already looking back on glory days and feeling dissatisfied with his life. The plot isn't new, but Updike's writing makes it fresh and it feels real.
There should be, in a man's life, hours when he has never married, and his wife walks in magic circles she herself draws. It was little enough to ask; he had sold his life, his chances, for her sake.
September 14, 2009
A good Sunday morning read. Very lovely, descriptive writing, easy to get into the mundane lives of his characters.
January 18, 2022
loved it. Pretty stories full of warm characters
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February 28, 2022Last week while reading this on the train I decided I didn't want to read it anymore, and stopped
I am no longer very interested at all in John Updike
I am no longer very interested at all in John Updike
September 26, 2016
The "Same Door" is John Updike's first collection of short stories, the collection was published in 1959 when Updike was only 27. As expected the stories focused around themes of childhood, adolescence, or young adulthood, the stages of life Updike had experienced when he wrote the stories. While the quality of the stories is somewhat uneven and do not always reflect the depth of Updike's later writing, there are some stories that show Updike's talent. My favorites include:
In "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and So Forth" a high school teacher leads class discussions on Macbeth, the students' dialogue and teacher's internal comments provide a substantive insight into Macbeth, but the thrust of the story is the teacher's infatuation with a pretty student leading him into the belittling of an apparent rival for her affections and an even meaner belittling of the smart kid in the class who not only understands the meanings of Macbeth but loves the play; the meanness of this is significant as the teacher realizes that the student is the teacher's alter ego, representing what he (and Updike) was like in high school.
"Who Made Yellow Roses Yellow?" tells of an awkward reconnection of two young men who became friends in college. Fred was popular and successful in college and went on a limb to get Thomas invited into a club which led to Thomas's conversion from somewhat of a college outcast into a student leader. When they reconnect for a lunch a few years later the roles have reversed, Thomas is busy and successful while Fred is hinting for a job
"The Lucid Eye in the Silver Town" is told by a 13 year old who goes to the city with his dad to buy a book about Vermeer and also to meet his dad's brother who is town in business. The story starts with the contrast between his dad's shabbiness and dullness contrasted with his uncle's suaveness and easy way with the city but as the story ends, including the payment for a doctor's visit, the 13 year old's view of the relative character of the brothers changes.
"A Trillion Feet of Gas" -is interesting today mainly because of the dinner conversation of the then contemporary politics. Kennedy, Johnson, Al Gore SR, Adlai Stevenson are all discussed as Presidential Candidates shortly after the 1956 election and well before the anticipated 1960 election.
"The Happiest I've Been" tells of a college student leaving Christmas vacation early to go to Chicago to see a new girlfriend. His friend Neil is going to drive the 19 hours but decides to first go to a party of their former high school friends. The party symbolizes the transition of the college student's life from his former town and friends for whom he has sincere affection to his future and also shows some deep seated resentments that the student had been unaware.
In "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and So Forth" a high school teacher leads class discussions on Macbeth, the students' dialogue and teacher's internal comments provide a substantive insight into Macbeth, but the thrust of the story is the teacher's infatuation with a pretty student leading him into the belittling of an apparent rival for her affections and an even meaner belittling of the smart kid in the class who not only understands the meanings of Macbeth but loves the play; the meanness of this is significant as the teacher realizes that the student is the teacher's alter ego, representing what he (and Updike) was like in high school.
"Who Made Yellow Roses Yellow?" tells of an awkward reconnection of two young men who became friends in college. Fred was popular and successful in college and went on a limb to get Thomas invited into a club which led to Thomas's conversion from somewhat of a college outcast into a student leader. When they reconnect for a lunch a few years later the roles have reversed, Thomas is busy and successful while Fred is hinting for a job
"The Lucid Eye in the Silver Town" is told by a 13 year old who goes to the city with his dad to buy a book about Vermeer and also to meet his dad's brother who is town in business. The story starts with the contrast between his dad's shabbiness and dullness contrasted with his uncle's suaveness and easy way with the city but as the story ends, including the payment for a doctor's visit, the 13 year old's view of the relative character of the brothers changes.
"A Trillion Feet of Gas" -is interesting today mainly because of the dinner conversation of the then contemporary politics. Kennedy, Johnson, Al Gore SR, Adlai Stevenson are all discussed as Presidential Candidates shortly after the 1956 election and well before the anticipated 1960 election.
"The Happiest I've Been" tells of a college student leaving Christmas vacation early to go to Chicago to see a new girlfriend. His friend Neil is going to drive the 19 hours but decides to first go to a party of their former high school friends. The party symbolizes the transition of the college student's life from his former town and friends for whom he has sincere affection to his future and also shows some deep seated resentments that the student had been unaware.
June 28, 2016
Like most collections, this is a mixed bag. This unassuming collection of 16 stories is noteworthy for boasting John Updike's first Olinger stories, first Maples story, and first golf story. The young Updike impresses with some outstanding stories. My favorites were the proto-Rabbit "Ace in the Hole" and "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and So Forth." Others I enjoyed were the first Maples story "Snowing in Greenwich Village," the two religious-themed tales "Dentistry and Doubt" and "Sunday Teasing," and the opening story "Friends from Philadelphia."
A few stories left me cold. It was a chore to finish "A Trillion Feet of Gas" and "Who Made the Yellow Roses Yellow." I know a lot of reviewers loved "The Happiest I've Been," but I found it a frustrating read, flipping ahead (how many more pages??). Then I wondered if Updike was intentionally making the reader impatient to create empathy with the narrator, whose eagerness to get started on the road trip was thwarted at every turn. That final story of the book had a great ending that made me forgive the shortcomings that came before it.
I read one story a night, and that restraint aided and abetted my appreciation. Binge-reading Updike short stories can try one's patience; for example, his tendency for meticulously detailed listings of every object on a shelf or in a room. On the other hand, reading them close together one notices the many references to the arts--music, film, literature, and the viusal arts, topics that Updike would expound upon in his erudite nonfiction writing. THE SAME DOOR was an enjoyable book and a fun visit to the early work of a great writer.
A few stories left me cold. It was a chore to finish "A Trillion Feet of Gas" and "Who Made the Yellow Roses Yellow." I know a lot of reviewers loved "The Happiest I've Been," but I found it a frustrating read, flipping ahead (how many more pages??). Then I wondered if Updike was intentionally making the reader impatient to create empathy with the narrator, whose eagerness to get started on the road trip was thwarted at every turn. That final story of the book had a great ending that made me forgive the shortcomings that came before it.
I read one story a night, and that restraint aided and abetted my appreciation. Binge-reading Updike short stories can try one's patience; for example, his tendency for meticulously detailed listings of every object on a shelf or in a room. On the other hand, reading them close together one notices the many references to the arts--music, film, literature, and the viusal arts, topics that Updike would expound upon in his erudite nonfiction writing. THE SAME DOOR was an enjoyable book and a fun visit to the early work of a great writer.
August 21, 2021
It occurred to me while reading this book that a short story is not unlike a meme: the good ones are good because they give a taste of something quintessentially relatable. The parallel really ends there, considering a meme's goal is humor, and a good short story, while sometimes funny, digs for a little more than that. Anyway, I loved this book. I love how all of the characters are sympathetic, even when coming within a hairsbreadth of making a mistake. I love how Updike's focus is always on the internal life, and that he makes it clear that each and every character has an equally rich and profound experience of reality. Oof - and the last line of the book. That was what really cinched the deal for me.
Best thing a stranger said to me while reading this book:
Owner of the Greek cafe I was eating/reading at: *Sets paper with almost illegibly scrawled words in front of me* "If you like Updike, you should look up this story he did for the New Yorker back in 1960. He was still pretty young - couldn't have been more than 30, but boy is it good."
Best thing a stranger said to me while reading this book:
Owner of the Greek cafe I was eating/reading at: *Sets paper with almost illegibly scrawled words in front of me* "If you like Updike, you should look up this story he did for the New Yorker back in 1960. He was still pretty young - couldn't have been more than 30, but boy is it good."
May 14, 2015
FIRST LINE REVIEW: "The moment his car touched the boulevard heading home, Ace flicked on the radio." I've read many novels by Updike, but none of his short stories...and so I now begin to rectify that literary wrong. Updike has always been a bit hit-and-miss with me, but having recently read a great biography about the author, I was compelled to return to his writing and am not disappointed. Typical moments of everyday beauty abound in his writing, feeling as comfortable as flicking on a radio while heading home from a day at work, and often surprising me by what comes out.
July 19, 2020
This was Updike's first collection of short stories, and still represents some of his best early work. "The Happiest I've Been," has always been among my two or three favorites by Updike. The control he exhibits in that nostalgic piece is breathtaking. Among other stories here, the lovely "Snowing in Greenwich Village" introduces us to the Maples, both "The Alligators" and "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and So Forth" reflect on typical school-day experiences, and "Intercession" is a humorous golf story. This is a collection that I always find rewarding to re-read.
November 4, 2013
I like this very very.
”Tomorrow and〜” 's toward story written yesterday. I like that high school teacher and that happen always in school I seem.
This book seems Updike's early energy and strong mind to the literture.
I like this!
”Tomorrow and〜” 's toward story written yesterday. I like that high school teacher and that happen always in school I seem.
This book seems Updike's early energy and strong mind to the literture.
I like this!
September 6, 2014
"The Happiest I've Been" is brilliant. Vintage Updike. The rest of this early collection shows Updike developing his talent, refining his voice. In all, a pleasant read.
June 11, 2016
A light, insightful, and fun read. Not very impressive when it comes to the plots of the stories, but otherwise it's all very well-written and close to reality.
April 27, 2012
I wish I could write such a book myself!
October 11, 2022
Egyre határozottabb meggyőződésem, hogy Updike – többek közt – nagyszerű impresszionista novellista. Szeretem, ez a kötete is nagyszerű volt. Színek, hangulatok, érzések, hangok, millió elbűvölő benyomás.
May 14, 2024
An early collection of stories from 1959. Updike's graceful prose reveals: friendship, class, social mobility in both directions and a prodigious knack for memorable imagery.
March 31, 2025
Updike's first short story collection. My perfect palate cleanser and the origins of one of America's great authors.
August 12, 2025
I love Updike.
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May 6, 2023The early stories of John Updike tend to be split in a few ways, with a number of them being small town stories about young people, especially teens, dealing with feelings much larger than the agency and control they have over their world. He excels at these types of stories in this collection especially. The story "Friends from Philadelphia" has that funny kind of tension between what a teen wants to do and what their parents require of them, with the slight added air of dad-menace warning that you had better listen to him.
Another, "Ace in the Hole" - A proto-story more than anything else about an aging (and by this I mean in his early 20s) highschool basketball star who has unwittingly traded in his basketball shoes for a marriage and young baby. If this sounds a lot like Rabbit, Run, that’s because it is – even with Ace Anderson becoming simply Fred Anderson in local papers as his records are eclipsed by new local stars.
"Snowing in Greenwich Village" This is the first of the “Maples” stories, about a married couple who goes through the throes of falling in love, getting married, having children, slowly falling out of love, and then eventually, painfully having a divorce. The Maples are one of the several John Updike narratives that get revisited from time to time. The Rabbit books, the Bech books, and the Maples stories are the main three, but a few others here and there. It feels clear, but really only John Updike knows, that the Maples probably share a lot with Updike, in ways that it often feels like Harry Angstron (Rabbit) does not. They met in college, they are wasp-y, and they have that kind of young love that so many early novels and stories used to be like, when people got married so much younger than they do now, and have a handful of kids before their brains are even fully formed and they figure some things about themselves. In this story, they are young and in love, but also, the seeds are there for the eventual dissolution of their marriage. They are kind of bored with sleeping with each other, and other people seem as if not more interesting than each other.
Another, "Ace in the Hole" - A proto-story more than anything else about an aging (and by this I mean in his early 20s) highschool basketball star who has unwittingly traded in his basketball shoes for a marriage and young baby. If this sounds a lot like Rabbit, Run, that’s because it is – even with Ace Anderson becoming simply Fred Anderson in local papers as his records are eclipsed by new local stars.
"Snowing in Greenwich Village" This is the first of the “Maples” stories, about a married couple who goes through the throes of falling in love, getting married, having children, slowly falling out of love, and then eventually, painfully having a divorce. The Maples are one of the several John Updike narratives that get revisited from time to time. The Rabbit books, the Bech books, and the Maples stories are the main three, but a few others here and there. It feels clear, but really only John Updike knows, that the Maples probably share a lot with Updike, in ways that it often feels like Harry Angstron (Rabbit) does not. They met in college, they are wasp-y, and they have that kind of young love that so many early novels and stories used to be like, when people got married so much younger than they do now, and have a handful of kids before their brains are even fully formed and they figure some things about themselves. In this story, they are young and in love, but also, the seeds are there for the eventual dissolution of their marriage. They are kind of bored with sleeping with each other, and other people seem as if not more interesting than each other.
March 6, 2016
The best thing about reading Updike lies in experiencing his sentences. Sometimes he is a precisionist. Sometimes he lingers down a jazz riff, flipping a half note away like a flake of his life but remembering with flutey whispers that carry the nuance of the piece. Sometimes he is a realist, one who presents information in tryptich panels or in museum displays. Sometimes it is sheer artistry. I never know exactly where he will go and for this I follow and read on.
The stories collected here are not memorable as classics but they knock at 'the same door.' That door, I thought, was human perception and its fallacies, human hope and its foibles, human judgment and its mistakes.
The stories collected here are not memorable as classics but they knock at 'the same door.' That door, I thought, was human perception and its fallacies, human hope and its foibles, human judgment and its mistakes.
May 2, 2016
Updike heeft een ongewoon scherp omschrijvend vermogen. Hierdoor ziet de lezer meer dan gebruikelijk. Zaken die bij minder begaafde schrijvers buiten de lens vallen, krijgen hier de volle aandacht. Updike schildert met meer kleuren dan het menselijke oog gewend is te zien.
Dat gezegd hebbende zijn de zaken die hij zo virtuoos omschrijft niet bijzonder interessant, maar dat zou eigenlijk natuurlijk het punt moeten zijn. Inkijkjes in toevallige momenten van normale Amerikaanse levens, van rurale kinderen tot aristocratische stadsmensen: alles komt aan bod.
De lezer krijgt een paar korte gangen voorgeschoteld die wel eens waar goed smaken, maar weinig vullen: uiteindelijk beklijft niets en gaan we naderhand naar de snackbar om een volle buik te halen.
Dat gezegd hebbende zijn de zaken die hij zo virtuoos omschrijft niet bijzonder interessant, maar dat zou eigenlijk natuurlijk het punt moeten zijn. Inkijkjes in toevallige momenten van normale Amerikaanse levens, van rurale kinderen tot aristocratische stadsmensen: alles komt aan bod.
De lezer krijgt een paar korte gangen voorgeschoteld die wel eens waar goed smaken, maar weinig vullen: uiteindelijk beklijft niets en gaan we naderhand naar de snackbar om een volle buik te halen.
September 26, 2020
A somewhat forgotten titan of American literature. Will probably never be taught in high schools, but I put Updike alongside Hemingway, Fitzgerald, et al., as inheritor of that tradition.
Updike’s first collection and well worth the read, especially if interested in dynamics of East Coast city life versus suburban life, faith versus skepticism, Puritanism versus modernity, and racial harmony as well as racial tension—the fault lines along which essentially every major American political or cultural issue resides, even to this day—drawn up by Updike in the lives of ordinary people, in beautiful language.
Updike’s first collection and well worth the read, especially if interested in dynamics of East Coast city life versus suburban life, faith versus skepticism, Puritanism versus modernity, and racial harmony as well as racial tension—the fault lines along which essentially every major American political or cultural issue resides, even to this day—drawn up by Updike in the lives of ordinary people, in beautiful language.
May 19, 2009
His first collection of short stories, and a brilliant collection at that. The themes of the stories are still relevant today and should be read, digested, and nurtured. The world lost a brilliant short story writer when Mr. Updike died. The stories in this collection can also be found in his more recent "The Early Stories."
June 6, 2014
This is my first attempt at Updike and it was a little underwhelming for everything I've heard and read. I'm guessing that at this point he was still finding his voice. Must not have taken too long since, Rabbit was his next.
June 21, 2012
1985 notebook: neat, elegant, exquisite. Lovely, alive. The jewelery of the mundane, the little shivery moments of the quotidian. (I was a pretentious prat even then).
August 24, 2011
If you're going to read two Updike stories, and you just finished "Pigeon Feather," pick up "The Happiest I've Been" and prepare to get fuzzy and wistful for the rest of the night.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews