Long recognized as one of the most acute observersoftheAmericansceneduring the last half of the twentieth century, John Updike's special strength has been novels set in the immediate present, in which the manners, styles, and sexual mores of American culture are dissected under the microscope of his fiction. The four novels concerning the life and times of ex-athlete Harry Angstrom (Rabbit, Run, 1960; Rabbit Redux, 1971; Rabbit Is Rich, 1981; Rabbit at Rest, 1990) constitute a chronicle of a man whose best years ended when he was eighteen years old; but they also tell with uncanny prescience the narrative of an America increasingly consumed by media superficialities, racial tensions, sexual revolutions, and a credo of material success that legitimates greed and self-interest as a way of life.

Similarly, his novels Couples (1968), A Month of Sundays (1975), and Marry Me (1976) along with the powerful collection of short stories, Too Far to Go (1979), explore...