Table of Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: Hawthorne, Updike, and the Immoral Imagination 1
1 John Updike and the Existentialist Imagination 10
Part I The "Mythic Immensity" of the Parental Imagination
2 "Flight," "His Mother Inside Him," and "Ace in the Hole" 39
3 The Centaur 45
4 Of the Farm, "A Sandstone Farmhouse," and "The Cats" 51
Part II Collective Hallucination in the Adulterous Society
5 "Man and Daughter in the Cold," "Giving Blood," "The Taste of Metal," and "Avec la Bébé-Sitter" 67
6 Marry Me 75
7 Couples and "The Hillies" 89
Part III Imaginative Lust in the Scarlet Letter Trilogy
8 "The Football Factory," "Toward Evening," "Incest," "Still Life," "Lifeguard," "Been Swings?" and "Three Illuminations in the Life of an American Author" 107
9 A Month of Sundays 119
10 Roger's Version 129
11 S. 138
Part IV Female Power and the Female Imagination
12 "Marching through Boston," "The Stare," "Report of Health," "Living with a Wife," and "Slippage" 151
13 The Witches of Eastwick 159
Part V The Remembering Imagination
14 "In Football Season," "First Wives and Trolley Cars," "The Day of the Dying Rabbit," "Leaving Church Early," and "The Egg Race" 173
15 Memories of the Ford Administration 184
16 "The Dogwood Tree," "A Soft Spring Night in Shillington," and "On Being a Self Forever" 192
Conclusion: Updike, Realism, and Postmodernism 201
Bibliography 207
Index 215
Credits 223
