John (Hoyer) Updike Biography

Dictionary of Literary Biography on John (Hoyer) Updike

A reader would be hard pressed to name a contemporary author other than John Updike whose work is more in tune with the way most Americans live. Unconcerned with apocalypse in his fiction, undeterred by the universal absurdity that threatens to negate the bravest and the best, Updike writes about ordinary people leading ordinary lives. Man, wife, home, children, job--these mundane concerns have rested at the heart of his art since he published his first book, a volume of poetry titled The Carpentered Hen and Other Tame Creatures, in 1958, and they have continued to help him dissect, lovingly and clearly, the daily routine of Middle America in small town and suburb.

War is generally not an issue for Updike, and neither are the problems of space weapons, worldwide hunger, or the fouling of the planet. The concerns in Updike's writing do not make front-page news, but they do matter because Updike knows that "something fierce goes on in homes." He may not write about murder and mayhem and madness, but, in an exquisitely lyrical style that even his detractors admire, he probes the crises that sear the human spirit: how does a man cling to a mistress when he fears leaving his wife; how does he explain his guilt to his children when he knows that love is all that matters; how does he get his life going again when the applause heaped on him in high school has shattered into silence; how does he fill the void when religious faith seems faltering and false; and how does he grow along with his children who, overnight, seem to know more but care less"

Moralist, stylist, chronicler of the American middle class, Updike investigates the inner lives of families and the common details that define them.

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