John Updike: A Critical Biography

by Bob Batchelor

Overview

One of the world's greatest writers, John Updike chronicled America for more than five decades. This book examines the essence of Updike's writing, propelling our understanding of his award-winning fiction, prose, and poetry.

Widely considered "America's Man of Letters," John Updike is a prolific novelist and critic with an unprecedented range of work across more than 50 years. No author has ever written from the variety of vantages or spanned topics like Updike did. Despite being widely recognized as one of the nation's literary greats, scholars have largely ignored Updike's vast catalog of work outside the Rabbit tetralogy. This work provides the first detailed examination of Updike's body of criticism, poetry, and jourbanalism, and shows how that work played a central role in transforming his novels. The book disputes the common misperception of Updike as merely a chronicler of suburban, middle-class America by focusing on his novels and stories that explore the wider world, from the groundbreaking The Coup (1978) to Terrorist (2006). Popular culture scholar Bob Batchelor asks readers to reassess Updike's career by tracing his transformation over half a century of writing.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313384035
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	04/23/2013
Pages:	230
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Bob Batchelor, PhD, is assistant professor in the School of Jourbanalism and Mass Communication at Kent State University and academic coordinator of its online master's program in public relations. Batchelor is the author or editor of 21 books, including 3 volumes in Greenwood's "Popular Culture through History" series: The 1900s, The 1980s, and The 2000s. In addition, he edited Greenwood's four-volume American Pop: Popular Culture Decade by Decade; Praeger's three-volume Cult Pop Culture: How the Fringe Became Mainstream; and Praeger's three-volume American History through American Sports.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xv

1 John Updike: An American Writer and His Times 1

2 Why Write: Updike as Craftsman, Professional, and Celebrity 19

3 Pennsylvania as American Ideal 37

4 Updike's Poetry 53

5 Rabbit, Run and American Culture 63

6 Chronicler of American Sexuality 79

7 Rabbit Lives and Dies 93

8 Between Writer and Reader: Updike as Critic 107

9 Master Storyteller 119

10 Radical Departures: Updike as Experimental Novelist 133

11 Updike's Audience 147

12 Racing toward the Apocalypse: Updike's New America 173

13 Evolution of a Literary Lion 197

Conclusion 211

Bibliography 219

Index 225

What People are Saying About This

Donald J. Greiner

"John Updike had a brilliantly sustained career as the most honored American writer of his generation. We have long needed a comprehensive discussion of Updike’s accomplishment that situates it in the changing cultural contexts of his time. Bob Batchelor shrewdly contextualizes Updike with a wide-ranging, keen understanding of both Updike’s complex canon and his skill at balancing art and celebrity."

James Schiff

"Approaching Updike’s literary career through the lens of popular culture, Bob Batchelor gives us one of the more personal and refreshing critical appraisals of a writer who spent decades absorbing culture. Whether using the Kinks’ 'Lola' to shed light on Updike’s poetry or investigating the importance of 9/11 in Updike’s life and writings, Batchelor composes a work that is singular, creative, and at times shrewd. Among its many contributions, this book will lead you back to Terrorist, challenging you to view it as far more central in Updike’s oeuvre."

Laurence W. Mazzeno

"Professor Batchelor’s expertise as a scholar of popular culture gives him a unique perspective from which to evaluate the career of a writer whose influence on his own times is just now coming to be understood. With a keen critical eye and a certain degree of bravado, Batchelor offers a striking defense of Updike from charges made against his irrelevancy, his unwillingness to venture out of his comfort zone, and his commitment to realism in his fiction. With insight and clarity, Batchelor offers a portrait of Updike that dispels the notion that he is simply a “fifties kind of guy” nostalgic for a bygone age in America. It is impossible to come away from John Updike: A Critical Biography without feeling that Updike is a figure worthy of attention now and in the future."

James Plath

"Bob Bachelor has written persuasively on Updike before, but with John Updike: A Critical Biography he uses his public relations and marketing background to create a fascinating centaur of a book—one that fuses Updike studies with discussions of consumer trends, pop culture history, and public relations. It’s a fascinating read, not just for students of literary studies, but for those 'plain readers' Updike so treasured."

Editorial Reviews

[H]olds a great deal of interest for a general audience as well as the Updike specialist.” —American Studies The University of Kansas

“A fundamental dimension of this biography is Batchelor's attempt, four years after Updike's death, to demonstrate how much of Updike was either not treated or mischaracterized by critics during his life. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers.” —Choice

From the Publisher