After the glittering and extravagant landscapes of The Coup, we return in [Problems and Other Stories] to more familiar domestic terrain—gas stations in Nevada, church basements, motels, subways, bathrooms. We are back in the world of Everyman's everyday suffering and everyday grace….

Heroically mundane, still desperately hopeful, their minds echoing with quotations from Blake and St. Augustine and esoteric scraps of information about extinct ungulates, Updike's characters stumble bravely on through the dark world, remembering past innocence and past delights, for they are aging and guilty, victims of the "curve of sad time" which Updike invokes in his dedication…. And yet, as always with Updike, there are moments of exhilaration, phrases that redeem the prevailing sense of loss. Something gleams just beyond the edge of vision, and one of his many particular gifts is his ability to suggest it, to catch it, to persuade us that after...