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The Maples Stories
Collected together for the first time in hardcover, these eighteen classic stories from across John Updike’s career form a luminous chronicle of the life and times of one marriage in all its rich emotional complexity.
In 1956, Updike published a story, “Snowing in Greenwich Village,” about a young couple, Joan and Richard Maple, at the beginning of their marriage. Over the next two decades, he returned to these characters again and again, tracing their years together raising children, finding moments of intermittent happiness, and facing the heartbreak of infidelity and estrangement. Seventeen Maples stories were collected in 1979 in a paperback edition titled Too Far to Go, prompted by a television adaptation. Now those stories appear in hardcover for the first time, with the addition of a later story, “Grandparenting,” which returns us to the Maples’s lives long after their wrenching divorce.
In 1956, Updike published a story, “Snowing in Greenwich Village,” about a young couple, Joan and Richard Maple, at the beginning of their marriage. Over the next two decades, he returned to these characters again and again, tracing their years together raising children, finding moments of intermittent happiness, and facing the heartbreak of infidelity and estrangement. Seventeen Maples stories were collected in 1979 in a paperback edition titled Too Far to Go, prompted by a television adaptation. Now those stories appear in hardcover for the first time, with the addition of a later story, “Grandparenting,” which returns us to the Maples’s lives long after their wrenching divorce.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1980
About the author
John Updike
925 books2,513 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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January 12, 2020
Reading Road Trip 2020
Current location: Massachusetts
I had every intention, after leaving behind the state of New Hampshire, to travel on to Vermont, but I unexpectedly hit a roadblock and had to turn around, taking a detour south to Massachusetts.
I'll be honest; I didn't mind.
Two of my all-time favorite writers wrote about life in Massachusetts: EE Cummings and John Updike.
And, since I've read just about everything Mr. Cummings ever published, the obvious choice for Massachusetts was something set in that state by John Updike.
John Updike the person might have been a 6 foot 3 inch baby-man and an overall giant weiner, but John Updike the writer was almost unparalleled in his craft. (With the obvious exception of whatever the hell was going wrong in his life when he wrote The Witches of Eastwick). Mr. Updike was born in Pennsylvania, and his famous Rabbit series is set there, but he lived and died in Massachusetts and the majority of his stories take place in that state.
This collection of 18 stories by Updike, The Maples, is my 12th work of Updike's, and is officially now my favorite.
In a word: Wow.
Updike wrote these short stories about Richard and Joan Maple as a serial collection. They originally appeared, independently, in prominent literary magazines like The New Yorker and The Atlantic Monthly. Even though they were stand-alone stories at the time, and were written over the course of 20 years, they were eventually published together here, creating an experience not unlike the related stories of Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge.
The Maples mirrored Updike's first marriage in an almost uncanny way. His fictional characters, Richard and Joan Maple, met in college and married at almost exactly the same time he and his real wife did. They lived in Massachusetts and then briefly in England (as the real Updikes did) and both the fictional couple and the real couple went on to have four children.
I'm not the type of reader who makes a habit of confusing a writer with a writer's protagonist, but it's challenging to resist the temptation here. I haven't read any literary criticism of this book, but I'm sure I'm not the first critic to make the obvious connections.
Having clarified that. . . the main point here is: the writing. The writing, the writing, the writing.
Where do I begin?
Young Richard, his cup filled to the brim with four healthy children, observes his beautiful wife:
And now you, beside the white O of the plate upon which the children discarded with squeals of disgust the rings of translucent onion that came squeezed in the hamburgers—you push your toes an inch closer to the blaze, and the ashy white of your thigh's inner side is lazily laid bare, and the eternally elastic garter snaps smack warm against my hidden heart.
Middle-aged Richard, pouting from a lack of sex and attention, observes his wife:
She must love the children, for they flock to her like sparrows to suet. They fight bitterly for a piece of her lap and turn their backs upon their father, as if he, the seed-bearing provider of their lives, were a grotesque intruder, a chimney sweep in a snow palace.
The struggle to maintain the marriage:
All that June the weather had mocked the Maples' internal misery with solid sunlight—golden shafts and cascades of green in which their conversations had wormed unseeing, their sad murmuring selves the only stain in Nature.
Because, sadly, as you will learn by the book jacket, before you even crack open the first page, this is a story about the eventual decline of the Maples, as a couple.
The question being. . . do they, or do they not find their marriage. . . irretrievable?
This is a heart-breaking collection, and one of the best written books I've ever read. The words lit up, jumped out frantically at me, and made me cover my head with a blanket.
Current location: Massachusetts
I had every intention, after leaving behind the state of New Hampshire, to travel on to Vermont, but I unexpectedly hit a roadblock and had to turn around, taking a detour south to Massachusetts.
I'll be honest; I didn't mind.
Two of my all-time favorite writers wrote about life in Massachusetts: EE Cummings and John Updike.
And, since I've read just about everything Mr. Cummings ever published, the obvious choice for Massachusetts was something set in that state by John Updike.
John Updike the person might have been a 6 foot 3 inch baby-man and an overall giant weiner, but John Updike the writer was almost unparalleled in his craft. (With the obvious exception of whatever the hell was going wrong in his life when he wrote The Witches of Eastwick). Mr. Updike was born in Pennsylvania, and his famous Rabbit series is set there, but he lived and died in Massachusetts and the majority of his stories take place in that state.
This collection of 18 stories by Updike, The Maples, is my 12th work of Updike's, and is officially now my favorite.
In a word: Wow.
Updike wrote these short stories about Richard and Joan Maple as a serial collection. They originally appeared, independently, in prominent literary magazines like The New Yorker and The Atlantic Monthly. Even though they were stand-alone stories at the time, and were written over the course of 20 years, they were eventually published together here, creating an experience not unlike the related stories of Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge.
The Maples mirrored Updike's first marriage in an almost uncanny way. His fictional characters, Richard and Joan Maple, met in college and married at almost exactly the same time he and his real wife did. They lived in Massachusetts and then briefly in England (as the real Updikes did) and both the fictional couple and the real couple went on to have four children.
I'm not the type of reader who makes a habit of confusing a writer with a writer's protagonist, but it's challenging to resist the temptation here. I haven't read any literary criticism of this book, but I'm sure I'm not the first critic to make the obvious connections.
Having clarified that. . . the main point here is: the writing. The writing, the writing, the writing.
Where do I begin?
Young Richard, his cup filled to the brim with four healthy children, observes his beautiful wife:
And now you, beside the white O of the plate upon which the children discarded with squeals of disgust the rings of translucent onion that came squeezed in the hamburgers—you push your toes an inch closer to the blaze, and the ashy white of your thigh's inner side is lazily laid bare, and the eternally elastic garter snaps smack warm against my hidden heart.
Middle-aged Richard, pouting from a lack of sex and attention, observes his wife:
She must love the children, for they flock to her like sparrows to suet. They fight bitterly for a piece of her lap and turn their backs upon their father, as if he, the seed-bearing provider of their lives, were a grotesque intruder, a chimney sweep in a snow palace.
The struggle to maintain the marriage:
All that June the weather had mocked the Maples' internal misery with solid sunlight—golden shafts and cascades of green in which their conversations had wormed unseeing, their sad murmuring selves the only stain in Nature.
Because, sadly, as you will learn by the book jacket, before you even crack open the first page, this is a story about the eventual decline of the Maples, as a couple.
The question being. . . do they, or do they not find their marriage. . . irretrievable?
This is a heart-breaking collection, and one of the best written books I've ever read. The words lit up, jumped out frantically at me, and made me cover my head with a blanket.
August 4, 2022
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about optimal distance. Each of us is most comfortable in a relationship when our partner, friend, or family member meets our level of optimal closeness. It’s deregulating when someone doesn’t allow us enough space to express or unfold, or is content with a distance that leaves us feeling unmoored. And this optimal distance is different for each of us, leaving us to navigate and negotiate each connection anew.
Writers exert a certain control over their words, and in turn, give them a certain amount of space to unfold. With these stories, Updike is perfect in his precision, his words so carefully chosen that I heard the facets, like crystals, chiming up against one another. And yet Updike lets imperfection run a thread where it may to add a touch of freedom, a touch of the subconscious, which dodges into the frame before getting back on track. He cares for his work in a way I wish I was cared for as a child - he is the ideal mother to his creations, cultivating them with exquisite attention and care, and then standing back to watch them bloom into their own separate beauty.
It’s lovely that these stories take us through time with one married couple, watching them as they negotiate their own optimal distance. Updike actually wrote each story at different points in his life, and I could feel the added authenticity. Time is the dimension through which this couple builds meaning, and each story is a unique gem made more beautiful by the reflection of the one that came before. And Updike says as much with what he withholds as he does with his chosen words.
I’ve also been thinking a lot about wholesomeness - how could I not when I alternated reading these stories with those of J. T. Leroy? Updike’s stories felt wholesome to me, even with some of the 1970s details of liberal swing. He had a similar effect on me here as Salter did with Light Years, Stegner with Spectator Bird, and (more depressingly), Yates in Revolutionary Road. I loved each of these works, and could hear Joe from Stegner in Richard, could see Nedra in Joan as their husbands saw them. All of these books expose the insides of white, mid-century marriages in the suburbs (this starts in NYC, but ends up in the burbs). In all, there is a hint of the progressive, but from a time and place when things felt less messy, overall.
So, there is the relationship between the author and his or her sentences, and then there’s the distance the author chooses to maintain between himself and the reader - how many secrets does he share or withhold, what does he think we need to know? How much guidance does he give us while we travel through his story? Writers express their optimal distance in the telling of their stories, and the readers respond on a subconscious level. It seems we enter a relationship each time we read an author’s work, and how satisfied we feel is in large part determined by how well the author’s optimal distance merges with our own.
I tend to like deep reveal and clear guidance, but with lots of space. The Maples Stories gave me just that. I tend to prefer things a bit less wholesome, but was in awe of the artistry with which Updike brought these works into being.
Writers exert a certain control over their words, and in turn, give them a certain amount of space to unfold. With these stories, Updike is perfect in his precision, his words so carefully chosen that I heard the facets, like crystals, chiming up against one another. And yet Updike lets imperfection run a thread where it may to add a touch of freedom, a touch of the subconscious, which dodges into the frame before getting back on track. He cares for his work in a way I wish I was cared for as a child - he is the ideal mother to his creations, cultivating them with exquisite attention and care, and then standing back to watch them bloom into their own separate beauty.
It’s lovely that these stories take us through time with one married couple, watching them as they negotiate their own optimal distance. Updike actually wrote each story at different points in his life, and I could feel the added authenticity. Time is the dimension through which this couple builds meaning, and each story is a unique gem made more beautiful by the reflection of the one that came before. And Updike says as much with what he withholds as he does with his chosen words.
I’ve also been thinking a lot about wholesomeness - how could I not when I alternated reading these stories with those of J. T. Leroy? Updike’s stories felt wholesome to me, even with some of the 1970s details of liberal swing. He had a similar effect on me here as Salter did with Light Years, Stegner with Spectator Bird, and (more depressingly), Yates in Revolutionary Road. I loved each of these works, and could hear Joe from Stegner in Richard, could see Nedra in Joan as their husbands saw them. All of these books expose the insides of white, mid-century marriages in the suburbs (this starts in NYC, but ends up in the burbs). In all, there is a hint of the progressive, but from a time and place when things felt less messy, overall.
So, there is the relationship between the author and his or her sentences, and then there’s the distance the author chooses to maintain between himself and the reader - how many secrets does he share or withhold, what does he think we need to know? How much guidance does he give us while we travel through his story? Writers express their optimal distance in the telling of their stories, and the readers respond on a subconscious level. It seems we enter a relationship each time we read an author’s work, and how satisfied we feel is in large part determined by how well the author’s optimal distance merges with our own.
I tend to like deep reveal and clear guidance, but with lots of space. The Maples Stories gave me just that. I tend to prefer things a bit less wholesome, but was in awe of the artistry with which Updike brought these works into being.
October 28, 2020
John Updike could have written about anything. He could have written about phalaenopsis orchids, the Vietnam war, architectural trends of the 1800s, the rise of the Roman empire, wigs. He possessed such a fine mind and was master of the English language - he could have made anything interesting and/or illuminating, whatever the topic.
But he chose, time and time again, to write about marriage. We saw it through the Rabbit tetralogy, Marry Me, Couples and also in this incredible collection of short stories about Richard and Joan Maple, which sees the Maples through their two decades of marriage, and eventual divorce.
The stories were written during the twenty years of the Maples' marriage, and published in all kinds of places, from The New Yorker to Playboy. What an absolute jewel of a collection. It features the artistry of a writer at the top of his game, combined with the total authenticity of its subject. So while reading this, I alternated between two states of mind - 1) fandom and delight at his brilliance, the audacity of this bad-boy bard:
"Smacked smackwarm on her smackable warm woman's thigh."
Take me, NOW!
And then 2) a cracked shell, pained by the broken heart that he keeps poking (I'm sure it's my broken heart, truth be told), the story that is so universal, that two good people who share a life cannot always make each other happy:
"You're such a nice woman," he said. "I can't understand why I'm so miserable with you."
Kill me, NOW!
The portrait of this marriage is complete with children, houses, parties, affairs, separation, the whole shebang. When it ends, it isn't with dismissive relief. It is with deep reverence for the partnership, it is with friendship, it is with pain. With love. I didn't get the sense at all that the ending of the Maples' complicated relationship meant a failure. It is a mixed bag, but two people strove together and created a family, lay together in the dark, felt slings and arrows and always looked each other in the eye after. Their closeness will rival and possibly surpass any person they will meet in the future. I can't believe that's a failure.
As the author says in his foreword:
That a marriage ends is less than ideal; but all things end under heaven, and if temporality is held to be invalidating, then nothing real succeeds.
Thank god John Updike decided to write about marriage.
But he chose, time and time again, to write about marriage. We saw it through the Rabbit tetralogy, Marry Me, Couples and also in this incredible collection of short stories about Richard and Joan Maple, which sees the Maples through their two decades of marriage, and eventual divorce.
The stories were written during the twenty years of the Maples' marriage, and published in all kinds of places, from The New Yorker to Playboy. What an absolute jewel of a collection. It features the artistry of a writer at the top of his game, combined with the total authenticity of its subject. So while reading this, I alternated between two states of mind - 1) fandom and delight at his brilliance, the audacity of this bad-boy bard:
"Smacked smackwarm on her smackable warm woman's thigh."
Take me, NOW!
And then 2) a cracked shell, pained by the broken heart that he keeps poking (I'm sure it's my broken heart, truth be told), the story that is so universal, that two good people who share a life cannot always make each other happy:
"You're such a nice woman," he said. "I can't understand why I'm so miserable with you."
Kill me, NOW!
The portrait of this marriage is complete with children, houses, parties, affairs, separation, the whole shebang. When it ends, it isn't with dismissive relief. It is with deep reverence for the partnership, it is with friendship, it is with pain. With love. I didn't get the sense at all that the ending of the Maples' complicated relationship meant a failure. It is a mixed bag, but two people strove together and created a family, lay together in the dark, felt slings and arrows and always looked each other in the eye after. Their closeness will rival and possibly surpass any person they will meet in the future. I can't believe that's a failure.
As the author says in his foreword:
That a marriage ends is less than ideal; but all things end under heaven, and if temporality is held to be invalidating, then nothing real succeeds.
Thank god John Updike decided to write about marriage.
September 10, 2026
I’ve been having some of the poorest nights’ sleep of my life, and the morning I picked up this book and read the first of these stories before work was one of the worst in this long stretch of sleepless, restless nights.
I usually start the day at 6:30 a.m., so I don’t normally read before work, but that morning I was packed and ready to go almost half an hour earlier than usual and thought, “Why not? I’ll read one of these stories and see how it goes.”
By the time I left for work, I was in tears from laughing. I couldn’t stop on the way there, and laughed again every time I thought about it throughout the day.
The “joke” was something to do with someone being a vegetarian, but I’ll spare you the details so you can enjoy it for yourself.
Well now, my friends, this is where things get spicy, because I’m about to go on and on about John Updike’s exquisite writing in these stories. I mean, WOW, what did I just read? Not only did these characters feel like real human beings, they talked like human beings and, believe it or not, even moved like human beings.
Wherever they were, whatever they were doing or talking about, it felt like I was right there with them — in the middle of a room, on the streets of Rome, or even at the nude beach.
For someone who very rarely finds books funny, and considering how sad and depressing some of this could have been, it’s ridiculous how many times I laughed out loud.
I highlighted the hell out of this book: witty passage after witty passage, all showing an astonishing understanding of human nature and, more specifically, how marriage works. Simply unbelievable.
At this point, it feels almost pointless to share any of those passages. I’m going to let you discover it all for yourself.
If you’ve been following me on here, you’ve probably already noticed that I’m not the kind of guy who fits neatly into a box. No, I’ve never signed a marriage certificate, but know this: if you ever think about inviting me to your wedding, this book is going to be my gift to you.
I usually start the day at 6:30 a.m., so I don’t normally read before work, but that morning I was packed and ready to go almost half an hour earlier than usual and thought, “Why not? I’ll read one of these stories and see how it goes.”
By the time I left for work, I was in tears from laughing. I couldn’t stop on the way there, and laughed again every time I thought about it throughout the day.
The “joke” was something to do with someone being a vegetarian, but I’ll spare you the details so you can enjoy it for yourself.
Well now, my friends, this is where things get spicy, because I’m about to go on and on about John Updike’s exquisite writing in these stories. I mean, WOW, what did I just read? Not only did these characters feel like real human beings, they talked like human beings and, believe it or not, even moved like human beings.
Wherever they were, whatever they were doing or talking about, it felt like I was right there with them — in the middle of a room, on the streets of Rome, or even at the nude beach.
For someone who very rarely finds books funny, and considering how sad and depressing some of this could have been, it’s ridiculous how many times I laughed out loud.
I highlighted the hell out of this book: witty passage after witty passage, all showing an astonishing understanding of human nature and, more specifically, how marriage works. Simply unbelievable.
At this point, it feels almost pointless to share any of those passages. I’m going to let you discover it all for yourself.
If you’ve been following me on here, you’ve probably already noticed that I’m not the kind of guy who fits neatly into a box. No, I’ve never signed a marriage certificate, but know this: if you ever think about inviting me to your wedding, this book is going to be my gift to you.
February 3, 2020
John Updike has written a brilliantly depressing book about marriage. He sure doesn’t see marriage in a positive light. In these interconnected stories, we meet Richard and Joan Maple and follow them through the course of their marriage.
“Courting a wife takes tenfold the strength of winning an ignorant girl”
The Maples are cruel to each other. They play “games “ with each other’s feelings. They betray each other but they have this weird type of love for each other. Richard is never so in love with Joan as when he hears about her bedding other men. Oh, yes, they tell all! There is such an aloofness to their connection. They caused each other so much hurt, it was hard to like either of them. I couldn’t relate to them, but I also couldn’t turn away from them.
“Bleeding, mangled, reverently laid in its tomb a dozen times, their marriage could not die.”
We know their marriage will end, as it tells us this in the book blurb, but to follow along through these stories, it was utterly heartbreaking.
Confession: I read Run, Rabbit, Run by John Updike around 1973 for a college course. I remember totally disliking it and have never read another book by him till this one. After reading Julie Grippo’s review, I felt I should give him another chance, and I am ecstatic that I did.
I was around 17 yrs old when I first read him, with minimal life experiences. This time around I get him and what he is saying!!
Highly recommended!!
“Courting a wife takes tenfold the strength of winning an ignorant girl”
The Maples are cruel to each other. They play “games “ with each other’s feelings. They betray each other but they have this weird type of love for each other. Richard is never so in love with Joan as when he hears about her bedding other men. Oh, yes, they tell all! There is such an aloofness to their connection. They caused each other so much hurt, it was hard to like either of them. I couldn’t relate to them, but I also couldn’t turn away from them.
“Bleeding, mangled, reverently laid in its tomb a dozen times, their marriage could not die.”
We know their marriage will end, as it tells us this in the book blurb, but to follow along through these stories, it was utterly heartbreaking.
Confession: I read Run, Rabbit, Run by John Updike around 1973 for a college course. I remember totally disliking it and have never read another book by him till this one. After reading Julie Grippo’s review, I felt I should give him another chance, and I am ecstatic that I did.
I was around 17 yrs old when I first read him, with minimal life experiences. This time around I get him and what he is saying!!
Highly recommended!!
April 4, 2020
A certain people, a certain era. Only John Updike to bring them alive like this for me. The semi-serialized stories are all over the map but the Maples never disappoint. They sometimes jest and posture; they leave their vulnerabilities showing; they are always astute. I can’t really review this book without it feeling like homework if I am to do the author justice, but – keeping it short – I’m struck once more at how for this level of writing, this quality of insight, Updike chooses to cast an uplifting and tender look on domesticity over anything else. No gloom of any real heft, no unnecessary gimmicks, just everyday life, really, and whatever beauty it carries for the common man. He writes it exquisitely.
Whether you agree with the promiscuity on display in The Maples Stories is something else entirely. The vignettes remain lighthearted and witty nonetheless, in that special way that seems effortless for Updike.
I read this during the coronavirus pandemic, taking my sweet time; lighthearted and witty hit the spot. I’m thinking the current global health context could’ve made for yet another successful story with the Maples, as their adventures spanned decades and each of them reflected the times in an engaging way – politically, culturally and otherwise. Navigating the push and pull of Joan and Richard Maple’s intimacy, John Updike would’ve had the talent to make it touching and funny, even now.
Whether you agree with the promiscuity on display in The Maples Stories is something else entirely. The vignettes remain lighthearted and witty nonetheless, in that special way that seems effortless for Updike.
I read this during the coronavirus pandemic, taking my sweet time; lighthearted and witty hit the spot. I’m thinking the current global health context could’ve made for yet another successful story with the Maples, as their adventures spanned decades and each of them reflected the times in an engaging way – politically, culturally and otherwise. Navigating the push and pull of Joan and Richard Maple’s intimacy, John Updike would’ve had the talent to make it touching and funny, even now.
June 3, 2026
*4.5 stars
This is my first introduction to the writing of John Updike. I've had Rabbit, Run on my shelf for years, but I keep putting it off thinking I'd love it so much I'd want to read all five of the Rabbit novels straight away and that kind of overwhelms me. Or, I would not like it at all and that kind of overwhelms me, too. So, I chose this collection of eighteen short stories that chronicle the complex relationship between Joan and Richard Maple and their crumbling marriage and eventual divorce.
Too Far to Go is interesting because the first story was published in 1956, just three years after Updike married for the first time. The penultimate story was published in 1976, just two years after that marriage ended in divorce. After going on a deep-dive of Updike, it is easy to see that he heavily drew on his own life for inspiration. There are many details that mirror his real life including Joan's background and interests to the Maple's four children and their ages. These stories appealed to the part of me that consumes fiction as if it were non-fiction.
From "Wife-wooing," early in their marriage:
We sense everything between us, every ripple, existent and nonexistent: it is tiring. Courting a wife takes tenfold the strength of winning an ignorant girl.
From "Separating," when Richard tells their oldest son of the impending separation and his crying son asks why:
Why. It was a whistle of wind in a crack, a knife thrust, a window thrown open on emptiness. The white face was gone, the darkness was featureless.
Richard had forgotten why.
From "Gesturing," towards the very end of their marriage when Joan makes a familiar gesture:
The motion was eager, shy, exquisite, diffident, trusting: he saw all its meanings and knew that she would never stop gesturing within him, never; though a decree come between them, even death, her gestures would endure, cut into glass.
From "Grandparenting," the final story as Joan and Richard, divorced and married to other people, navigate the birth of their first grandchild:
Nobody belongs to us, except in memory.
Collections are always a mixed bag for me. The stories ranged from 3-5 stars, all solid, but it's the prose of Updike that shines the most. Overwrought at times, to me, but even those passages are worthy of reading more than once. His closing passages, though, are stellar. Closing passages often make or break a novel, or a short story, or even a poem for me. Updike made every one of these stories worthy reads for their 5-star endings.
*Thank you, Bonnie G, for leading me to finally read Updike with her fabulous review of this collection and for leading me to "Grandparenting" to complete my Maple journey.
This is my first introduction to the writing of John Updike. I've had Rabbit, Run on my shelf for years, but I keep putting it off thinking I'd love it so much I'd want to read all five of the Rabbit novels straight away and that kind of overwhelms me. Or, I would not like it at all and that kind of overwhelms me, too. So, I chose this collection of eighteen short stories that chronicle the complex relationship between Joan and Richard Maple and their crumbling marriage and eventual divorce.
Too Far to Go is interesting because the first story was published in 1956, just three years after Updike married for the first time. The penultimate story was published in 1976, just two years after that marriage ended in divorce. After going on a deep-dive of Updike, it is easy to see that he heavily drew on his own life for inspiration. There are many details that mirror his real life including Joan's background and interests to the Maple's four children and their ages. These stories appealed to the part of me that consumes fiction as if it were non-fiction.
From "Wife-wooing," early in their marriage:
We sense everything between us, every ripple, existent and nonexistent: it is tiring. Courting a wife takes tenfold the strength of winning an ignorant girl.
From "Separating," when Richard tells their oldest son of the impending separation and his crying son asks why:
Why. It was a whistle of wind in a crack, a knife thrust, a window thrown open on emptiness. The white face was gone, the darkness was featureless.
Richard had forgotten why.
From "Gesturing," towards the very end of their marriage when Joan makes a familiar gesture:
The motion was eager, shy, exquisite, diffident, trusting: he saw all its meanings and knew that she would never stop gesturing within him, never; though a decree come between them, even death, her gestures would endure, cut into glass.
From "Grandparenting," the final story as Joan and Richard, divorced and married to other people, navigate the birth of their first grandchild:
Nobody belongs to us, except in memory.
Collections are always a mixed bag for me. The stories ranged from 3-5 stars, all solid, but it's the prose of Updike that shines the most. Overwrought at times, to me, but even those passages are worthy of reading more than once. His closing passages, though, are stellar. Closing passages often make or break a novel, or a short story, or even a poem for me. Updike made every one of these stories worthy reads for their 5-star endings.
*Thank you, Bonnie G, for leading me to finally read Updike with her fabulous review of this collection and for leading me to "Grandparenting" to complete my Maple journey.
June 3, 2021
Delicious! I have started the past several mornings enveloped in Updike's exquisite prose. I can randomly open the book to any page and find a passage worth quoting.
Set between 1956 and the late 80's these collected stories tell the tale of the Maples from their second year of marriage through the birth of their first grandchild. Updike captures the dynamics between couples that ring true to anyone who is in or has been in a long term relationship.
In “Wife-Wooing” Richard Maple, eating takeout burgers and fries in front of a fire with his wife Joan, and their 4 young children contemplates his desire for sex and the effort it takes to court an exhausted, distracted wife:
"OH MY LOVE. Yes. Here we sit, on warm broad floorboards, before a fire, the children between us, in a crescent, eating . . . . And you. You. You allow this black skirt to slide off your raised knees down your thighs, slide up your thighs in your body's absolute geography, so the parallel whiteness of their undersides is exposed to the fire's warmth and to my sight."
Some years later:
"The Maples had talked and thought about separation so long it seemed it would never come. For their conversations, increasingly ambivalent and ruthless as accusation, retraction, blow, and caress alternated and cancelled, had the final effect of knitting them ever tighter together in a painful, helpless, degrading intimacy. And their lovemaking, like a perversely healthy child whose growth defies every deficiency of nutrition, continued; when their tongues at last fell silent, their bodies collapsed together as two mute armies might gratefully mingle, released from the absurd hostilities decreed by two mad kings. Bleeding, mangled, reverently laid in its tomb a dozen times, their marriage would not die. Burning to leave one another, they left, out of marital habit, together. They took a trip to Rome."
Even in their endless discussions about separating, the Maples call each other “Darley.” Joan says, “I hate your ego ... and our sex is lousy, but I’ve never been lonely with you.”
This collection is a complete view of one marriage--its ups and downs and its complexities. I don't always like Richard and Joan Maples, and I can understand each point of view in these masterfully told stories.
Updike zings with his concluding thought-- “Nobody belongs to us, except in memory.”
Set between 1956 and the late 80's these collected stories tell the tale of the Maples from their second year of marriage through the birth of their first grandchild. Updike captures the dynamics between couples that ring true to anyone who is in or has been in a long term relationship.
In “Wife-Wooing” Richard Maple, eating takeout burgers and fries in front of a fire with his wife Joan, and their 4 young children contemplates his desire for sex and the effort it takes to court an exhausted, distracted wife:
"OH MY LOVE. Yes. Here we sit, on warm broad floorboards, before a fire, the children between us, in a crescent, eating . . . . And you. You. You allow this black skirt to slide off your raised knees down your thighs, slide up your thighs in your body's absolute geography, so the parallel whiteness of their undersides is exposed to the fire's warmth and to my sight."
Some years later:
"The Maples had talked and thought about separation so long it seemed it would never come. For their conversations, increasingly ambivalent and ruthless as accusation, retraction, blow, and caress alternated and cancelled, had the final effect of knitting them ever tighter together in a painful, helpless, degrading intimacy. And their lovemaking, like a perversely healthy child whose growth defies every deficiency of nutrition, continued; when their tongues at last fell silent, their bodies collapsed together as two mute armies might gratefully mingle, released from the absurd hostilities decreed by two mad kings. Bleeding, mangled, reverently laid in its tomb a dozen times, their marriage would not die. Burning to leave one another, they left, out of marital habit, together. They took a trip to Rome."
Even in their endless discussions about separating, the Maples call each other “Darley.” Joan says, “I hate your ego ... and our sex is lousy, but I’ve never been lonely with you.”
This collection is a complete view of one marriage--its ups and downs and its complexities. I don't always like Richard and Joan Maples, and I can understand each point of view in these masterfully told stories.
Updike zings with his concluding thought-- “Nobody belongs to us, except in memory.”
March 31, 2020
Halfway through this series of short stories about Richard and Joan Maple, a couple of educated white, perpetually financially comfortable (with no explanation of where the money came from or what type of work brought it) relationship game players in 1960s suburbia, I'd decided the writing ranged from absolutely wonderful to self-conscious (meaning I could hear Updike tooling words and saying, "Oh, that's good."). And I believed that, constitutionally, I am not the audience for this because I get impatient with this level of privileged, civilized, nonviolent game playing and want to yell, "Why are you wasting your precious time here? You've got education, money, health, and an ability to at least try to find out why you're stuck in this level of nonsense. Do something about it, get out, or quit your belly-aching." And then came the story "Plumber." Everything that the previous stories lacked—soul, wise perspective, and sadness—permeated that story. So I attempted to shut off my inner judge and read on.
I did get bored again during some of the game-playing stories that followed, so I broke my practice of reading only one book at a time and switched off to several other books and then came back. This seemed to expand my tolerance for Updike's chosen people—people with no real-life survival problems or need for jobs they must show up at, people who can move about and live wherever they please, people who have no problem finding sex partners and constantly do, or get depressed, convinced that their problems are their partner or lack of partner, rather than face loneliness and, in that, whatever deep, dark, nasty stuff they are secreting from themselves about themselves. For me, this feels shallow and pointlessly relentless. But I similarly get burned out listening to friends who are perpetually convinced that the answer to their problems is something outside themselves and shun all suggestions that they might look in a different direction, and if they can't, perhaps they are addicted to their misery. I would be a terrible therapist, because, as I said, this may not be my kind of material.
I did get bored again during some of the game-playing stories that followed, so I broke my practice of reading only one book at a time and switched off to several other books and then came back. This seemed to expand my tolerance for Updike's chosen people—people with no real-life survival problems or need for jobs they must show up at, people who can move about and live wherever they please, people who have no problem finding sex partners and constantly do, or get depressed, convinced that their problems are their partner or lack of partner, rather than face loneliness and, in that, whatever deep, dark, nasty stuff they are secreting from themselves about themselves. For me, this feels shallow and pointlessly relentless. But I similarly get burned out listening to friends who are perpetually convinced that the answer to their problems is something outside themselves and shun all suggestions that they might look in a different direction, and if they can't, perhaps they are addicted to their misery. I would be a terrible therapist, because, as I said, this may not be my kind of material.
July 27, 2021
My favorite scene from the endless succession of Lord of the Rings movies was the long shot of Rivendell, of beautiful architecture clinging to side of a steep valley, waterfalls providing framing. Of course, Rivendell does not exist, except in the heads of Alan Jackson and his CGI team. But it closely resembles some of the more lovely spots on Planet Earth, which is, as far as we know, the most beautiful planet in the universe. Something to remember.
I feel damn grateful to live here, on a planet with green plants, blue oceans, white clouds and (for us, at least) lovely and mostly nonthreatening fauna to brighten our days. I feel even luckier that my job does not involve sweating and mosquitos and leeches and trying not to step in buffalo dung.
So: Why would I want to read about people who have all this, and four healthy kids and the wherewithal to jet off to Rome when the mood strikes them and still can't find any joy in life? (Or, to be fair, have moments of joy popping out of a sea of self-inflicted misery.) Grow up. I made it through the first ten of these stories before the sand-in-my-eyeballs feeling became too strong.
I realize many of my friends find inspiration and solace in reading this, and don't want to spoil the party for people whose tastes are different than mine, but unfortunately this brings back similar, unpleasant memories from reading Rabbit and Bech.
I feel damn grateful to live here, on a planet with green plants, blue oceans, white clouds and (for us, at least) lovely and mostly nonthreatening fauna to brighten our days. I feel even luckier that my job does not involve sweating and mosquitos and leeches and trying not to step in buffalo dung.
So: Why would I want to read about people who have all this, and four healthy kids and the wherewithal to jet off to Rome when the mood strikes them and still can't find any joy in life? (Or, to be fair, have moments of joy popping out of a sea of self-inflicted misery.) Grow up. I made it through the first ten of these stories before the sand-in-my-eyeballs feeling became too strong.
I realize many of my friends find inspiration and solace in reading this, and don't want to spoil the party for people whose tastes are different than mine, but unfortunately this brings back similar, unpleasant memories from reading Rabbit and Bech.
April 17, 2021
The gift of loving. The heart's projection in a face. Poetic logic extrapolated into pullulating prose. Rhythms of the distracted interior. The quiet calm of an assured mind. The heady grandeur of a passing fancy. Every stiff tonsure and allure of wafting tendrils of silken hair. A magniloquent breeze. Heartfelt murmur of a bird in wind-beaten rafters. A seeking aloft of cloud-blurred sky. A heartbeat chained to your chest. The striven sentence gartered with a quick verb. The heavy motion of a sigh. Billowing. Harrowed, the child's cry, penned in the far room, wallowing among toys with diapered Godzilla thighs, he cries, he cries. Angered words, the effluence of a relationship souring, the nightmare of a night's drive, shame-pallored. Exhaustion, melancholic diatribes. What lies under decency, descriptions to paralyze, awe-stippled immersion, inspiring exquisite awareness, paltry gestures, the loyalty inherent in every phrase. Guilt sobs, ecstatic squeals of solemn heartthrob, a heart robbed of devout ballast. A mind navigating treacherous soul waters. Inner courage and its lack, detectable with a word or wordlessness. Exploring hurt. Imagery so immaculate you want to house it in glass. How all of life, no matter how convincing it is, is but a dream, partially remembered, drearily endured, or breathlessly eroded. Smart, swift, and elaborately unkind. Sincere, entranced, rapture-ridden iridescent impressions. The words have an elegant complexion. Emotions bunching up, stacking like Saltines in the esophagus. How we all drag along afterbirths, our pasts, and within its sticky folds our bitterly recollected traumas swarm like fire ants. The obsession with sleeping with people, adultery, like alcoholism, a congenital disease of his characters, a modus operandi. The people who give them a new lease on life are always located outside the marriage, they are trying to solve their problems by feeding the hole inside them. Facing the void of the self.
These were pieces of my feelings while reading this collection
These were pieces of my feelings while reading this collection
March 2, 2026
"Nobody belongs to us, except in memory." It is not a spoiler, I don't think, to say those are the last, perfect words of this extraordinary book.
The Maples Stories take us through the fits and starts of building a family, of the many forms that the word "family" can take over the years.
Richard and Joan marry, reveling in the blush of youth, in the bohemian downtown life, in the excitement of beginning to build a family. And then they are rocked by the slap across the face of the mundanity that follows, the fruitless struggle to regain that early excitement and to redefine oneself as an "I" rather than a "we", even if in 20-minute bursts of flirtation or fucking with the neighbor.
Updike reaches into his soul and his divine gift for language to cut to the heart of the events of a lifetime, the bombastic events, and the whimpers, and the long slow swirls down the drain.
As close to perfect as a book can be.
The Maples Stories take us through the fits and starts of building a family, of the many forms that the word "family" can take over the years.
Richard and Joan marry, reveling in the blush of youth, in the bohemian downtown life, in the excitement of beginning to build a family. And then they are rocked by the slap across the face of the mundanity that follows, the fruitless struggle to regain that early excitement and to redefine oneself as an "I" rather than a "we", even if in 20-minute bursts of flirtation or fucking with the neighbor.
Updike reaches into his soul and his divine gift for language to cut to the heart of the events of a lifetime, the bombastic events, and the whimpers, and the long slow swirls down the drain.
As close to perfect as a book can be.
February 18, 2021
Updike meant a lot to me in my twenties. The incredible, dazzling prose; every sentence a finely-wrought masterpiece. And that whole thematic fiefdom he carved out of serial middle class WASP marital infidelity. Which I guess I found fascinating because it was so removed from the outwardly similar world of my upbringing. Was Updike revealing the hidden world of true adulthood, the unseen horror of marriage and family? All those post-war angst-y intellectual white guys-- Updike, Roth, Bellow, Joseph Heller, Richard Yates-- no matter what paper-thin alter-ego they depicted, they were essentially screaming the same thing in every book: "DON'T GET MARRIED TOO EARLY, KID! DON'T GET ROPED INTO TRYING TO LIVE UP TO ALL THAT AMERICAN DREAM BULLSHIT!"
Was reading all that stuff one of the reasons I didn't get married until I was 35? Or have a child until I was 44? Who knows? But now as a middle aged husband and father, looking back on Updike's usual gang of tormented thirty and forty-something rat racers and housewives, I find they're even more alien to me. We've never had couple friends like Richard and Joan Maple, and I wouldn't last an hour making small talk at one of their boozy little evening sociables. The cover blurb on the book describes them as "sympathetic and well-intentioned." That's a lie. Richard Maple is a fucking asshole, and the "twist" to most of these stories is that he's an even bigger asshole than you previously thought. In fairly record time, I came to hate them both, and I could not abide another minute privy to their relentless, passive-aggressive trench warfare marriage.
It also hits me now just how insular and limited Updike's world was. He had one tone, which became his default point-of-view no matter who he was writing about. Only I don't buy for a minute that a suburban stick figure like Richard Maple would walk around thinking the lofty, Updike-ian thoughts Updike gives him. In that sense, I don't think John Updike ever really created characters, nor did he have any actual stories to tell. He wrote to express himself, and did it compulsively, like Woody Allen, grinding out product year after year that grew evermore stale.
As with my other youthful author idol, Hunter S. Thompson, it's sad to realize just how far Updike and I have grown apart these passing years. It's not you, John, it's me.
Was reading all that stuff one of the reasons I didn't get married until I was 35? Or have a child until I was 44? Who knows? But now as a middle aged husband and father, looking back on Updike's usual gang of tormented thirty and forty-something rat racers and housewives, I find they're even more alien to me. We've never had couple friends like Richard and Joan Maple, and I wouldn't last an hour making small talk at one of their boozy little evening sociables. The cover blurb on the book describes them as "sympathetic and well-intentioned." That's a lie. Richard Maple is a fucking asshole, and the "twist" to most of these stories is that he's an even bigger asshole than you previously thought. In fairly record time, I came to hate them both, and I could not abide another minute privy to their relentless, passive-aggressive trench warfare marriage.
It also hits me now just how insular and limited Updike's world was. He had one tone, which became his default point-of-view no matter who he was writing about. Only I don't buy for a minute that a suburban stick figure like Richard Maple would walk around thinking the lofty, Updike-ian thoughts Updike gives him. In that sense, I don't think John Updike ever really created characters, nor did he have any actual stories to tell. He wrote to express himself, and did it compulsively, like Woody Allen, grinding out product year after year that grew evermore stale.
As with my other youthful author idol, Hunter S. Thompson, it's sad to realize just how far Updike and I have grown apart these passing years. It's not you, John, it's me.
July 23, 2026
Stories about a marriage published over several decades, it reads like a short, fragmented novel, with the inconsistency of a collection. Four stars for the five-star stories, including the one in Rome with the famous simile I first heard quoted by Frank Conroy in a writing workshop, comparing the Colosseum to a "shattered wedding cake" (I think Frank had said a "a ruined wedding cake"). The opening pages of the story in which a couple wanders unselfconsciously from the nudist beach down to the normie beach seemed like the most vivid thing Updike had ever written, although the story's second half stalls out somewhat. Many of these stories seemed to induce zone out at times, even if none other than the last activated an impulse to skim. Often seems like what they call "autofiction" -- seems loosely based on the author's own marriage, his own kids, his own separation and divorce. That is, the stories feel real. And there's real poignancy and ambiguity in the book's latter half. A beautiful hardcover with a nice dustjacket and fancy golden built-in ribbon bookmark. Will most likely acquire a few other entries in this Everyman's Library Pocket Classics series, mostly anthologies of, for example, Christmas Stories or Ghost Stories.
April 29, 2012
I can’t help but love Updike’s astute observations and portrayals of human relationships and infidelities. The 18 short stories are about the Maples that Updike wrote about throughout his career. Collected here in one volume, they read like wildfire with each short story feeling like a self-contained chapter.
We see the rise and fall of Joan and Richard Maples’ relationship with a few stories that act as flashbacks and a story that concludes with their divorce and their becoming grandparents. Updike reveals every nuance of their infidelity to each other, their love to each other and their frustration with each other. No holds barred from a master of the craft.
We see the rise and fall of Joan and Richard Maples’ relationship with a few stories that act as flashbacks and a story that concludes with their divorce and their becoming grandparents. Updike reveals every nuance of their infidelity to each other, their love to each other and their frustration with each other. No holds barred from a master of the craft.
August 1, 2017
It's been ages since I read any Updike. To use an analogy, because Updike would, reading this story cycle of the marriage of Joan and Richard Maple is like drinking an Old-Fashioned. It tastes a bit dated, a bit nostalgic, but it's still strong and somehow delicious. Whiskey cut by bitters and the sweet artificiality of a maraschino cherry. These stories are everything I associate with Updike's fictional world: that patrician New England setting, crackling dialogue, overly ornate sentences, but occasionally the most nuanced and insightful moment into human nature. In his own introduction to the collection, Updike describes his characters as being "incorrigibly themselves" despite the social changes of the decades and the long years of being uneasily yoked together in marriage. He demonstrates that incorrigibility of personality so beautifully. I think that marriage is always a worthy subject for the writer, and I thoroughly enjoyed Updike's take on it.
March 1, 2010
Sometimes I hate Updike when I'm reading him, but I realize, when I distance myself from the characters and plot, that I hate how TRUE he is. This was one of the most perfect collections I have ever read. The stories were not always nice, not always easy to read, but together they were perfection. Love, love, love!
January 21, 2020
An excellent book for those who need to improve their hold on English language.
April 7, 2020
Nobody belongs to us, except in memory
I believe that Updike wrote this book to chronicle, through a set of linked stories, the stereotypical American middle-class marriage that began in the booming 1950s, succumbed to the hedonistic pursuits of that generation, and ended twenty years later in divorce and remarriage.
Richard and Joan Maple are your typical American couple of the ‘50’s, he’s an office worker and she’s the stay-at-home mother of four and the daughter of a liberal theology professor, prone to take up causes that do not mirror her social status. Theirs is not a marriage of passion and commitment but one of fulfilling the procreational expectations of their generation while partaking selfishly of what the sexual revolution of the 60’s bestowed upon middle-class, entitled and bored America.
The first seven years of marriage and the arrival of the three older children keep them engaged and interested in each other. Richard fantasizes over his wife’s earthiness as she starts to gain weight while also lusting over Joan’s close friends. Then comes the fourth (probably unplanned) child and the drifting apart of this married couple. Sex becomes boring. They take a trip to Rome to revitalize their romance, but conclude that he is Classic while she is Baroque.
The crisis of a possible separation temporarily averted, Joan gets actively involved in the Civil Rights movement which Richard finds boring. One night, while drunk and driving home from a party, Richard wraps his car around a telephone pole. While Joan goes for help, Richard gives in to his lust and passionately goes at it with their separated friend Eleanor inside the damaged car. But he is not the only transgressor, for soon afterwards, Richard catches Joan and Eleanor’s husband Mack kissing in their kitchen. These transgressions amplify over time – while in bed, Joan even discloses to Richard all the lovers she has had on the side, and all the lovers she knows he has had on his side. They don’t only have lovers but red herrings to try and divert each other off the scent of infidelity. They still need each other though, for the relationship has moved from Behaviour to Being, and Joan needs Richard in her life although the sex between them is lousy.
When the final separation comes after 19 years of marriage, and the news is broken to the children, the question on everyone's lips, expressed only by Richard Jr. is: “Why?” After Richard moves out, the separated couple meet regularly for dinner and discuss each other’s new lovers. And yet, there is something these lovers cannot replace, something that Richard and Joan had between them:
He saw through her words to what she was saying – that these lovers, however we love them, are not us, are not sacred as reality is sacred. We are reality. We have made children. We gave each other our young bodies. We promised to grow old together.
After the split comes the remorse, for one year afterwards they are miserable and regretful. The divorce ceremony, when it comes, despite much preparation and trepidation turns out to be a non-event, due to the new “ no fault" rule.
The final linked story sees Richard and Joan as expectant grandparents, now long married to their illicit lovers at the time of their split, Ruth and Andy respectively. They are meeting for daughter Judith’s confinement. This is no different than any set of couples of second marriages interacting in the close confines of a hospital amidst the great anticipation and nervousness of the first grandchild being born. Despite the abundance of life and procreation around him, Richard realizes that he cannot claim any credit for it. Updike delivers a superb closing line to illustrate this: “Nobody belongs to us, except in memory.”
I believe that Updike wrote this book to chronicle, through a set of linked stories, the stereotypical American middle-class marriage that began in the booming 1950s, succumbed to the hedonistic pursuits of that generation, and ended twenty years later in divorce and remarriage.
Richard and Joan Maple are your typical American couple of the ‘50’s, he’s an office worker and she’s the stay-at-home mother of four and the daughter of a liberal theology professor, prone to take up causes that do not mirror her social status. Theirs is not a marriage of passion and commitment but one of fulfilling the procreational expectations of their generation while partaking selfishly of what the sexual revolution of the 60’s bestowed upon middle-class, entitled and bored America.
The first seven years of marriage and the arrival of the three older children keep them engaged and interested in each other. Richard fantasizes over his wife’s earthiness as she starts to gain weight while also lusting over Joan’s close friends. Then comes the fourth (probably unplanned) child and the drifting apart of this married couple. Sex becomes boring. They take a trip to Rome to revitalize their romance, but conclude that he is Classic while she is Baroque.
The crisis of a possible separation temporarily averted, Joan gets actively involved in the Civil Rights movement which Richard finds boring. One night, while drunk and driving home from a party, Richard wraps his car around a telephone pole. While Joan goes for help, Richard gives in to his lust and passionately goes at it with their separated friend Eleanor inside the damaged car. But he is not the only transgressor, for soon afterwards, Richard catches Joan and Eleanor’s husband Mack kissing in their kitchen. These transgressions amplify over time – while in bed, Joan even discloses to Richard all the lovers she has had on the side, and all the lovers she knows he has had on his side. They don’t only have lovers but red herrings to try and divert each other off the scent of infidelity. They still need each other though, for the relationship has moved from Behaviour to Being, and Joan needs Richard in her life although the sex between them is lousy.
When the final separation comes after 19 years of marriage, and the news is broken to the children, the question on everyone's lips, expressed only by Richard Jr. is: “Why?” After Richard moves out, the separated couple meet regularly for dinner and discuss each other’s new lovers. And yet, there is something these lovers cannot replace, something that Richard and Joan had between them:
He saw through her words to what she was saying – that these lovers, however we love them, are not us, are not sacred as reality is sacred. We are reality. We have made children. We gave each other our young bodies. We promised to grow old together.
After the split comes the remorse, for one year afterwards they are miserable and regretful. The divorce ceremony, when it comes, despite much preparation and trepidation turns out to be a non-event, due to the new “ no fault" rule.
The final linked story sees Richard and Joan as expectant grandparents, now long married to their illicit lovers at the time of their split, Ruth and Andy respectively. They are meeting for daughter Judith’s confinement. This is no different than any set of couples of second marriages interacting in the close confines of a hospital amidst the great anticipation and nervousness of the first grandchild being born. Despite the abundance of life and procreation around him, Richard realizes that he cannot claim any credit for it. Updike delivers a superb closing line to illustrate this: “Nobody belongs to us, except in memory.”
November 4, 2011
Updike seems to write best when he writes of sad, pensive things. The melancholy late stories are things of real majesty, and the overall conceit of the story-cycle is, itself, well-done; I especially appreciate the present-progressive (-ing) verbs as titles throughout, as this adds a touch of life to the stories. There is the problem with how genuinely unlikeable Dick and Joan Maple are, as self-absorbed, adulterous boors. But this is honest, I think. These are our upper-class fantasy selves after all, the denizens of every Hitchcock film, of Mad Men, of Audrey Hepburn's deliciously black comedies. The American ideal of romance in the 20th, and continuing into the 21st, century is of erudition, sophistication, and the pleasure of the self. What Updike shows us in these stories is the beauty of this ideal of romance, to be sure--but also how crass, destructive, and utterly failing it is. While there are moments I hate Dick and Joan and their lovers, hate how their pathetic upper-middle-class liberalism does this idiotic song-and-dance of affairs being fine so long as the married couple communicates about it, there are also moments of astounding pain, beauty, and revelatory truth. Dick looking at Joan nude in their beach bungalow after their odd encounter with the nudists is one of those moments in literature where your brain is forever marked. And the story of Dick's going to get the anti-marriage license, of their moment in the courtroom after the divorce, these are the sorts of things that get written on your heart.
A book, then to be revisited every so many years. A strangely fantastic version of marriage that results in something really wonderful: speaking to the very real truth that loving others for one's self, and not for them, is painfully destructive, even though it is sometimes unavoidable, and we must go through destruction to recognize our solipsism, this destruction burning such self-absorption out of us. This is the trajectory of the cycle. And while some stories ring tinny in my heart, the beauty of the whole, and the immediacy of the just-mentioned truth, make this worth reading, worth thinking of again and again.
A book, then to be revisited every so many years. A strangely fantastic version of marriage that results in something really wonderful: speaking to the very real truth that loving others for one's self, and not for them, is painfully destructive, even though it is sometimes unavoidable, and we must go through destruction to recognize our solipsism, this destruction burning such self-absorption out of us. This is the trajectory of the cycle. And while some stories ring tinny in my heart, the beauty of the whole, and the immediacy of the just-mentioned truth, make this worth reading, worth thinking of again and again.
April 18, 2018
John Updike's "The Maples Stories" are a collection of eighteen short stories, written over Mr. Updike's career, that chronicle the marriage, separation, and divorce of Joan and Richard Maples and their four children. The writing is superb, at times frighteningly honest and at other times frighteningly surreal. The author has captured the dissolution of a marriage brilliantly, so brilliantly that if anyone is thinking of getting married I would recommend not reading this wonderful collection.
It has been a long time since I have read any of Mr. Updike's works. Actually, the last time was 1996 on an airplane ride, on Thanksgiving Day, from Los Angeles to New York. After reading this collection of stories, I definitely see more of Mr. Updike's work in my future. He is one of a few writers whose use 'of a stream of consciousness' heightens the narrative and who James Joyce I think would happily approve.
It has been a long time since I have read any of Mr. Updike's works. Actually, the last time was 1996 on an airplane ride, on Thanksgiving Day, from Los Angeles to New York. After reading this collection of stories, I definitely see more of Mr. Updike's work in my future. He is one of a few writers whose use 'of a stream of consciousness' heightens the narrative and who James Joyce I think would happily approve.
January 19, 2018
The best kind of Updike. Perfect prose, perfect similes (the Colosseum shaped like a shattered wedding cake!) and luckily no ridiculous and cringeworthy sex scenes. There's even a poetic description of a cabbage. It's like a sharper and more cynical Scenes from a Marriage, except they're not in Sweden.
In the morning, to my relief, you are ugly. Monday’s wan breakfast light bleaches you blotchily, drains the goodness from your thickness, makes the bathrobe a limp stained tube flapping disconsolately, exposing sallow décolletage. The skin between your breasts a sad yellow. I feast with the coffee on your drabness, every wrinkle and sickly tint a relief and a revenge. The children yammer. The toaster sticks. Seven years have worn this woman.
In the morning, to my relief, you are ugly. Monday’s wan breakfast light bleaches you blotchily, drains the goodness from your thickness, makes the bathrobe a limp stained tube flapping disconsolately, exposing sallow décolletage. The skin between your breasts a sad yellow. I feast with the coffee on your drabness, every wrinkle and sickly tint a relief and a revenge. The children yammer. The toaster sticks. Seven years have worn this woman.
September 24, 2021
DNF at 52%
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August 13, 2026
This book is a collection of eighteen individual but interconnected stories written by John Updike and originally published separately in magazines over the span of more than twenty years, the first in 1956, which opens on a domestic scene of Joan and Richard Maples, only two years married. Subsequent stories follow the evolution, the expansion of their family with children, and the eventual decline and dissolution of their marriage.
As I read along, I became increasingly invested in the lives of the Maples, whose story Updike crafts with intelligence, poignancy, and understated humor.
As the stories, and the marriage of the Maples, came to an end, I felt genuine sadness at the partings.
As I read along, I became increasingly invested in the lives of the Maples, whose story Updike crafts with intelligence, poignancy, and understated humor.
One morning he had walked through a mile of huckleberry and wild grape to a pond. Its rim of beach was scarcely a stride wide; only the turds and shed feathers of wild swans testified to other presences. The swans, suspended in the sun-irradiated mist upon the pond’s surface, seemed gods to him, perfect and infinitely removed. Not a house, not a car looked down from the hills of sand and scrub that enclosed the pond. Such pure emptiness under the sky seemed an opportunity it would be sacrilegious to waste. Richard took off his clothes, all; he sat on a rough warm rock, in the pose of Rodin’s Thinker. He stood and at the water’s edge became a prophet, a baptist. Ripples of light reflected from the water onto his legs. He yearned to do something transcendent, something obscene; he stretched his arms and could not touch the sky. The sun intensified. As mist burned from the surface of the pond, the swans stirred, flapping their wings in aloof, Olympian tumult. For a second, sex dropped from him and he seemed indeed the divinely shaped center of a concentric Creation; his very skin felt beautiful – no, he felt beauty rippling upon it, as if the Creation were loving him, licking him. Then, the next second, glancing down, he saw himself to be less than sublimely alone, for dozens of busy coppery bodies, ticks, were crawling up through the hair of his legs, as happy in his giant warmth as he was in the warmth of the sun.
As the stories, and the marriage of the Maples, came to an end, I felt genuine sadness at the partings.
August 1, 2021
I ended up reading this book because its last sentence is actually one of the best lines I've ever read: . The collection as a whole left me depressed and comforted at the same time, in that marriage and family are such fragile institutions, but even failed endeavors make up a life and the companionships that inhabit it. Also, really well written, even if Updike's characters are not always likeable.
December 31, 2020
I was tempted to read this vintage Updike book by this review. I can now confirm that everything it says is true, so no need for me to add anything.
May 26, 2020
"La recuperación de estas dos novelas de Updike nos deja muy clara la manera que tiene el autor de representar el matrimonio y el desaliento que produce el amor que se escapa con el paso del tiempo.
En Los Maple los protagonistas son Joan y Richard, un matrimonio cuyas aventuras vieron la luz en forma de cuento que fue sumando capítulos a medida que la pareja evolucionaba en el discurrir del tiempo. Los Maple hablan entre ellos con la complicidad otorgada por los muchos años de convivencia, plantean sin miedo sus otras relaciones y los motivos que los han llevado al abismo de la relación. Sin duda hay amor, fascinación y mucha nostalgia. Lejos del drama, el sentido del humor acompaña la resignación que se vive cuando vemos cómo se aleja una parte fundamental de nuestra vida para fundirse con alguien totalmente ajeno.
En Cásate conmigo, los que mantienen el corazón palpitante son Sally y Jerry, una pareja de amantes que se plantean la manera de huir de sus respectivos matrimonios y la posibilidad de formar uno propio, todo ello sin sospechar lo que sucede en sus casas y con el temor de que el hastío conyugal caiga sobre ellos.
La película de Stanley Donen, Dos en la carretera, podría ser el paralelismo visual, estético y romántico que más se acerca a estos personajes que buscan algo que no existe para siempre.
Nadie nos pertenece, excepto en el recuerdo" Neus Botellé
En Los Maple los protagonistas son Joan y Richard, un matrimonio cuyas aventuras vieron la luz en forma de cuento que fue sumando capítulos a medida que la pareja evolucionaba en el discurrir del tiempo. Los Maple hablan entre ellos con la complicidad otorgada por los muchos años de convivencia, plantean sin miedo sus otras relaciones y los motivos que los han llevado al abismo de la relación. Sin duda hay amor, fascinación y mucha nostalgia. Lejos del drama, el sentido del humor acompaña la resignación que se vive cuando vemos cómo se aleja una parte fundamental de nuestra vida para fundirse con alguien totalmente ajeno.
En Cásate conmigo, los que mantienen el corazón palpitante son Sally y Jerry, una pareja de amantes que se plantean la manera de huir de sus respectivos matrimonios y la posibilidad de formar uno propio, todo ello sin sospechar lo que sucede en sus casas y con el temor de que el hastío conyugal caiga sobre ellos.
La película de Stanley Donen, Dos en la carretera, podría ser el paralelismo visual, estético y romántico que más se acerca a estos personajes que buscan algo que no existe para siempre.
Nadie nos pertenece, excepto en el recuerdo" Neus Botellé
May 14, 2020
First things first, I have never been a big short story guy. By the time I get invested in a short story...it usually ends. But I loved this book of short stories, because as a collection they form one whole narrative. After all, the stories do follow the marriage of the Maples throughout the years.
Now on to the substance.
These stories made me . . . sad. Why do the Maples torture each other so? They are almost sadistic. They waste their whole marriage fighting, and then when all is said and done, they seem to experience profound regret. They realize that cannot take back what they have done to each other.
Now on to the writing.
It was great, as I expected it to be. Here is one of my favorite quotes:
"And their lovemaking, like a perversely healthy child whose growth defies every deficiency of nutrition, continued; when their tongues at last fell silent, their bodies collapsed together as two mute armies might gracefully mingle, released from the absurd hostilities decreed by two mad kings. Bleeding, mangled, reverently laid in its tomb a dozen times, their marriage could not die." From "Twin Beds in Rome," page 55.
Now on to the substance.
These stories made me . . . sad. Why do the Maples torture each other so? They are almost sadistic. They waste their whole marriage fighting, and then when all is said and done, they seem to experience profound regret. They realize that cannot take back what they have done to each other.
Now on to the writing.
It was great, as I expected it to be. Here is one of my favorite quotes:
"And their lovemaking, like a perversely healthy child whose growth defies every deficiency of nutrition, continued; when their tongues at last fell silent, their bodies collapsed together as two mute armies might gracefully mingle, released from the absurd hostilities decreed by two mad kings. Bleeding, mangled, reverently laid in its tomb a dozen times, their marriage could not die." From "Twin Beds in Rome," page 55.
June 24, 2024
I have the sense that Updike must have enjoyed writing these eighteen stories over roughly a twenty year period (except the last one written fifteen years later). There must have been no pressure for Updike to complete a collection, only to write another story when he felt like it. They can stand alone as short stories, but they’re also part of a series that concerns a couple, Richard and Joan Maples, and their four children. As the years progress Richard and Joan are two orbiting spheres that move together, and then apart, finally divorcing. There is one last coming together for the birth of their first grandchild.
I suppose an obvious question would be what goes wrong with the Maples marriage. It’s a question, asked and answered at one point by Richard, “I know what’s wrong with us. I’m classic and you’re baroque.” Any two persons are different, so there’s a simplified truth in that, but it doesn’t really explain anything. Over the course of these stories, Updike works out the circumstances that do come closer to explanation.
Nearer to the truth is that the passage of time wears out anything. Updike subtlety develops that idea in one of my favorite stories, “Plumbing” , about the plumbing problems in the old house the Maples have bought. One problem is the accretion of minerals that build up and corrode the pipes over the years. “Nothing you can do about it but dig it up up and replace it with new,” intones the plumber. Richard, his marriage no doubt hovering vaguely in his mind, is reluctant to make that decision. He imagines his lawn torn up, his garden ruined, the general disorder that would follow. The story ends with a vision of the sky, “fitted with temporary, timeless clouds. All around us, we are outlasted.”
Marriage – what is it but an paradoxical effort to achieve a timeless dimension, ending only “when death do us part,” But couples undergo change, and outlasting them are the corrosive effects of boredom, a sense of fulfillment found elsewhere, exemplified by the messy attraction to other potential sexual partners. In “Red Herring” Joan comments after a party, “We clean up what we spill. We always leave together, too.” The Maples love their children, constantly changing as they grow, and they have a dutiful commitment to the ideal of a family. It’s not just a sense of “duty,” they tolerate and accept each other’s weaknesses. And yet – life, particularly the allure of sex, catches them in its embrace.
The Naples are conflicted, “these lovers, however we love them, are not us, are not sacred as reality is sacred. We are reality. We have made children. We gave each other our young bodies. We promised to grow old together.” In the end, those promises are not kept, on either side, and they mutually decide, with no acrimony, to separate. Separateness is reality, too, and Updike leaves it at that.
In a kind of postscript, Richard and Joan meet again, this time both are much older, remarried, and can look back, even fondly, on their life, together and apart. The last words of the story deepens that sense of reality, “Nobody belongs to us, except in memory.” Water in the pipes ran freely and clear, but not forever.
I suppose an obvious question would be what goes wrong with the Maples marriage. It’s a question, asked and answered at one point by Richard, “I know what’s wrong with us. I’m classic and you’re baroque.” Any two persons are different, so there’s a simplified truth in that, but it doesn’t really explain anything. Over the course of these stories, Updike works out the circumstances that do come closer to explanation.
Nearer to the truth is that the passage of time wears out anything. Updike subtlety develops that idea in one of my favorite stories, “Plumbing” , about the plumbing problems in the old house the Maples have bought. One problem is the accretion of minerals that build up and corrode the pipes over the years. “Nothing you can do about it but dig it up up and replace it with new,” intones the plumber. Richard, his marriage no doubt hovering vaguely in his mind, is reluctant to make that decision. He imagines his lawn torn up, his garden ruined, the general disorder that would follow. The story ends with a vision of the sky, “fitted with temporary, timeless clouds. All around us, we are outlasted.”
Marriage – what is it but an paradoxical effort to achieve a timeless dimension, ending only “when death do us part,” But couples undergo change, and outlasting them are the corrosive effects of boredom, a sense of fulfillment found elsewhere, exemplified by the messy attraction to other potential sexual partners. In “Red Herring” Joan comments after a party, “We clean up what we spill. We always leave together, too.” The Maples love their children, constantly changing as they grow, and they have a dutiful commitment to the ideal of a family. It’s not just a sense of “duty,” they tolerate and accept each other’s weaknesses. And yet – life, particularly the allure of sex, catches them in its embrace.
The Naples are conflicted, “these lovers, however we love them, are not us, are not sacred as reality is sacred. We are reality. We have made children. We gave each other our young bodies. We promised to grow old together.” In the end, those promises are not kept, on either side, and they mutually decide, with no acrimony, to separate. Separateness is reality, too, and Updike leaves it at that.
In a kind of postscript, Richard and Joan meet again, this time both are much older, remarried, and can look back, even fondly, on their life, together and apart. The last words of the story deepens that sense of reality, “Nobody belongs to us, except in memory.” Water in the pipes ran freely and clear, but not forever.
March 20, 2022
A well written, engaging collection of eighteen short stories about Richard and Joan Maple. They have four children. Both have affairs during their marriage of over twenty years.
This collection of eighteen stories was first published in 2009. The first seventeen stories was published as a collection in 1979 with the last story titled ‘Grandparenting’ first published in 1995. In 1956 Updike published the first ‘Maple’ story and over the next two decades, returned to these characters again and again.
This collection of eighteen stories was first published in 2009. The first seventeen stories was published as a collection in 1979 with the last story titled ‘Grandparenting’ first published in 1995. In 1956 Updike published the first ‘Maple’ story and over the next two decades, returned to these characters again and again.
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