Updike

by Begley, Adam

  148 “Not quite right for me, as the rejection slips say”: LP, May 21, 1956, Houghton.

  149 Gill “came to The New Yorker young”: MM, 786.

  149 He wanted to be an artist, not an “elegant hack”: LP, June 26, 1960, Houghton.

  149 “easily the finest writing talent”: Brendan Gill to VG, October 20, 1956, Orion.

  149 “gallant, wise, and willing to lose money”: JU to VG, January 31, 1957, Orion.

  150 “While our baby cooed”: PP, 165.

  150 “It was a revelation to me”: Ibid., 167.

  150 “Those two woke me up”: Remnick interview, 2005.

  151 In some later accounts of his “defection”: DC, 103.

  151 “too trafficked, too well cherished by others”: SC, 253.

  151 “immense as the city is”: Remnick interview, 2005.

  151 “a vast conspiracy of bother”: LP, January 27, 1957, Houghton.

  151 “When New York ceased to support my fantasies”: AP, vii.

  151 “sweet as a mint paddy”: LP, February 18, 1957, Houghton.

  151 volunteered to find him a larger, more suitable apartment: DC, 103.

  151 “The crucial flight of my life”: ES, x.

  152 “the crucial detachment of my life”: OS, ix.

  152 In 1968 he told Time magazine: Td.

  152 “My money comes out of here”: WMRR.

  152 “There’s a certain moment of jubilant mortality”: Td.

  152 “being in New York takes so much energy”: OJ, 56.

  152 The reviewer referred in the very first sentence: Maxwell Geismar, “The End of the Line,” The New York Times, March 24, 1957.

  153 “very shallow sophistication”: Maxwell Geismar, “Fitzgerald: Bard of the Jazz Age,” Saturday Review of Literature, April 26, 1958, 17.

  153 William Maxwell felt obliged to send his “depressed” author: WM to JU, May 7, 1958, NYPL.

  154 “We must write where we stand”: PP, 48.

  154 “Irwin Shaw when he was a young man”: Maxwell, “The Art of Fiction No. 71.”

  155 Updike himself complained of a certain “prudery”: DC, 101.

  155 “anachronistic nice-nellyism”: OJ, 116.

  155 Dismissing what he called “Westport comedy”: Alfred Kazin, “Broadway: The New Philistines,” Time, June 6, 1960.

  156 “I notice in Time a reference to ‘the artist for The New Yorker’”: JU to Alfred Kazin, June 13, 1960, The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, New York Public Library.

  157 “Harold Bloom’s torturous dramatization”: HS, 592.

  IV. Welcome to Tarbox

  158 “[M]y conception of an artist . . .”: AP, 145.

  158 “If Shillington gave me life”: SC, 49.

  159 “Children are what welds a family to a town”: Ibid., 53.

  159 “It felt,” he wrote, “like a town with space”: JU, “The Dilemma of Ipswich,” Ford Times, September 1972, 10.

  159 Updike once claimed that he’d moved: SC, 57.

  159 “A small-town boy,” he wrote: ES, x.

  159 “the whole mass of middling, hidden, troubled”: SC, 103.

  160 “mini-city perkiness”: JU, “The Dilemma of Ipswich,” 10.

  160 “a maverick kind of place”: SC, 52.

  160 “Ipswich is traditionally careless of itself”: JU, “The Dilemma of Ipswich,” 12.

  161 “We are all looking forward greatly”: CC to JU, April 3, 1957, Harper.

  162 “It gathers power as it goes”: EL to JU, May 10, 1957, Harper.

  162 “[N]one of us feels that the book”: CC to JU, June 13, 1957, Harper.

  162 “It had been a good exercise to write it”: CJU, 47.

  162 “chalk it up to practice”: Ibid., 3.

  163 “every incident with any pith”: LP, January 13, 1964, Houghton.

  163 “wretched genre,” he exclaimed: CJU, 3.

  165 “a self-preserving detachment”: LL, 89.

  166 “one wife, one editor is all a man should have”: WM to JU, September 24, 1957, Houghton.

  166 “pricelessly sensitive reader”: CJU, 29.

  166 she advanced her shrewd opinions: Julieta Ojeda Alba, “A Relaxed Conversation with John Updike,” Atlantis (June–December 1996): 499. (Hereafter cited as Alba, “A Relaxed Conversation with John Updike.”)

  166 “He was good with the first baby”: Author interview, MW, November 1, 2011.

  167 “I came up here to get into a novel-writing groove”: JU to KSW, July 9, 1957, NYPL.

  169 “The poetry book is a lovely job”: JU to EL, March 1, 1958, Harper.

  169 “Is the young man joking?”: Found on JU letter to EL, April 14, 1958, Harper.

  169 “troubled about the impact of the story”: EL to JU, December 31, 1957, Harper.

  170 “too good to lose”: VG to Simon Michael Bessie, March 27, 1958, Orion.

  170 “a mistake to publish [the novel] as it stands”: EL to JU, January 17, 1958, Harper.

  170 “I think we knew already”: Found on JU letter to EL, January 20, 1958, Harper.

  170 “not carried to a satisfactory or satisfying conclusion”: EL to JU, January 27, 1958, Harper.

  170 the novel’s fate in the marketplace “could be dismal”: JU to EL, January 20, 1958, Harper.

  170 “I doubt whether we shall sell”: VG to Simon Michael Bessie, March 27, 1958, Orion.

  171 “You went to the heart”: JU to EL, February 17, 1958, Harper.

  171 “the doors at Harper’s are wide open”: EL to JU, February 20, 1958, Harper.

  171 She replied with a long, exceptionally frank letter: KSW to CC, February 18, 1958, Harper.

  172 “I am now deeply in debt and quite panicked”: JU to WM, January 25, 1958, NYPL.

  172 “ready to disgorge the whole mass”: JU to WM, January 21, 1958, NYPL.

  173 “I was full of a Pennsylvania thing I wanted to say”: CJU, 25.

  173 “a long account of the good old days in Shillington”: LP, October 14, 1958, Houghton.

  173 suggested that Updike send a carbon copy of the manuscript: JU to TB, March 23, 1967, Anthony Bailey Papers, Houghton Library.

  173 a “wildly enthusiastic” Richardson: SR to JU, March 16, 1958, Ransom.

  174 the “inner aspect of the book”: JU to SR, March 13, 1958, Ransom.

  174 “Do I sense here a universal man?”: SR to JU, March 17, 1958, Ransom.

  174 Updike described him as a cross: MM, 856.

  175 “I wrote The Poorhouse Fair as an anti-novel”: CJU, 45.

  175 “a deliberate anti–Nineteen Eighty-Four”: PF77, x.

  175 a “queer shape,” he called it: JU to EL, February 17, 1958, Harper.

  175 “what will become of us”: Ibid.

  176 “Out of the hole where it had been”: PF77, viii.

  176 Updike “had no fear”: CJU, 3.

  176 “in his way a distinguished man”: Ibid., 167.

  176 “He loved me, and I loved him”: DC, 11.

  177 an “oblique monument”: CJU, 3.

  177 “The time is ap-proaching”: PF, 117.

  177 The inventory of items Updike borrowed: PF77, xiii.

  177 “offhand-and-backwards-feeling”: PP, 51.

  177 “absolute empathy”: HS, 320.

  177 a “classic, if not flawless”: Whitney Balliett, “Writer’s Writer,” The New Yorker, February 7, 1959, 138.

  178 less a novel than a “poetic vision”: Ibid.

  178 a “poet’s care and sensitivity”: Ibid., 140.

  178 a lack of “emotional content”: Ibid.

  178 “curiously, one never thinks of liking or disliking it”: Ibid.

  178 “Even more than black death”: PF, 24.

  179 Updike recalled “the thrill of power”: OJ, 48.

  180 “My father was always afraid”: CJU, 12.

  180 “My first novel . . . showed the rebellion”: MM, 10.

  180 “I love the magazine like a parent
”: JU to SR, May 5, 1958, Ransom.

  180 a steady source of “whale-sized checks”: JU to WM, February 25, 1958, NYPL.

  181 “My wife and I found ourselves in a kind of ‘swim’ ”: SC, 51–52.

  183 One of the “genial grandees of Argilla Road”: Ibid., 52.

  183 the “cultivated older generation”: Ibid.

  183 the “Junior Jet Set”: “View from the Catacombs,” 75.

  184 The women seemed “gorgeous” to Updike: SC, 51.

  184 a “delayed second edition” of his high school self: Ibid., 221.

  184 “If he’s not being paid enough attention”: Td.

  185 “The sisters and brothers I had never had”: SC, 52.

  185 “on the basis of what I did in person”: CJU, 25.

  187 “clicked the collection shut”: JU to EL, March 1, 1958, Harper.

  187 “While writing it,” he explained: OJ, 134–35.

  188 “I believed,” he later wrote: Ibid., 135.

  189 “abrupt purchase on lived life”: Ibid.

  190 “In 1958 I was at just the right distance”: OJ, 134.

  191 “a shy try at strip poker”: DC, 84.

  191 “He was an utterly striking figure”: E-mail, Austin Briggs to author, March 6, 2011.

  191 “I am careless, neglecting to count cards”: DC, 84.

  191 he’d “changed houses, church denominations, and wives”: DC, 85.

  192 a “wonderful natural swing”: GD, 147.

  192 “The average golfer,” he later wrote: MM, 124.

  192 “the hours adding up,” he admitted: GD, xiv.

  192 this “narcotic pastime”: Ibid.

  192 “I am curiously, disproportionately”: Ibid., 169.

  192 Rounds of golf, he wrote: Ibid., 189.

  192 with his “modest” eighteen handicap: Ibid., xii.

  192 a “poor golfer, who came to the game late”: Ibid., 25.

  192 “The fluctuations of golfing success”: Ibid., 188–89.

  193 “golf was a rumored something”: Ibid., 24.

  193 “Golf,” he wrote, “is a great social bridge”: MM, 126.

  193 the “spongy turf of private fairways”: GD, 111.

  194 “I sensed that for John”: E-mail, Tim O’Brien to author, February 17, 2012.

  194 “Golf,” he explained, “is a constant struggle”: MM, 125.

  194 “Basically, I want to be alone with my golf”: GD, 40.

  194 O’Brien remembered having conversations: E-mail, Tim O’Brien to author, February 17, 2012.

  194 “He seemed delighted when he won a hole”: E-mail, Tim O’Brien to author, February 18, 2012.

  195 “In those instants of whizz, ascent, hover, and fall”: GD, 149.

  195 the “inexhaustible competitive charm”: Ibid., 127.

  195 “Golf,” he explained, “is . . . a great tunnel”: MM, 126.

  195 “My golfing companions . . . are more dear to me”: GD, 189.

  195 “If I thought as hard about writing”: Adam Begley, “A Jolly Geezer, Updike Is Back,” The New York Observer, October 27, 2003.

  195 “Golf converts oddly well into words”: GD, 15.

  196 “Some of us worship in churches”: Adlai E. Stevenson, The Major Campaign Speeches of Adlai E. Stevenson, 1952 (New York: Random House, 1953), 282.

  196 “the eerie religious latency”: GD, 51.

  197 “We lack the mustard-seed of faith”: Ibid., 46.

  197 yet “miracles . . . abound”: Ibid., 51.

  197 “ritual interment and resurrection”: Ibid., 152.

  197 “Our bad golf testifies, we cannot help feeling”: Ibid., 45.

  197 “Man in a state of fear and trembling”: MM, 852.

  198 “sputters away to one side”: RRun, 129.

  198 “beautiful natural swing”: Ibid., 130.

  198 “Ineptitude seems to coat him”: Ibid., 129.

  198 “a white flag of forgiveness”: Ibid., 131.

  198 “along a line straight as a ruler-edge”: Ibid., 134.

  198 “I do feel that somewhere behind all this”: Ibid., 127.

  198 “There was this thing that wasn’t there”: Ibid., 132.

  198 “Hell, it’s not much. . . .”: Ibid., 124.

  198 a “first-rate” athlete: Ibid., 105.

  199 “Playing golf with someone”: Ibid., 151.

  199 Harry is “worth saving and could be saved”: Ibid., 167.

  199 the “harmless ecstasy” of sporting excellence: Ibid., 168.

  199 “Although Harry hasn’t studied”: WMRR.

  199 “Shillington was littered . . .”: HG, 450.

  199 “clutter and tensions of young married life”: MM, 817.

  200 it felt “exhilaratingly speedy and free”: HG, 451.

  200 a “heavy, intoxicating dose of fantasy”: MM, 817.

  200 “as he would to his wife”: RRun, 82.

  200 “ ‘I’d forgotten,’ she says”: Ibid., 85.

  201 he’s “too fastidious to mouth the words”: Ibid., 186.

  201 “He takes his [clothes] off quickly”: Ibid., 187.

  201 “When the door closes”: Ibid., 192.

  201 Victor Gollancz resorted to Latin: VG to Daniel George, September 11, 1961, Orion.

  201 “I have . . . never read a novel”: Undated memorandum, VG, Orion.

  201 “RABBIT RUN A SUPERB NOVEL”: VG to JU, February 10, 1960, Orion.

  202 “There are one or two little matters to discuss”: OJ, 845.

  202 “I agreed to go along with the legal experts”: Ibid., 846.

  202 “The novels of Henry Miller,” Updike once quipped: PP, 38.

  203 “none of the excisions really hurt”: OJ, 846.

  203 his aim was “to write about sex”: CJU, 223.

  204 “the creature of impulse”: HG, 449.

  204 “With a sob of protest she grapples for the child”: RRun, 264.

  204 “Well, I just drowned the baby”: Author interview, MW, November 1, 2011.

  204 “Obviously, there was no real baby involved”: CJU, 132.

  205 his “aesthetic and moral aim”: HG, 451.

  205 “I once did something right”: RRun, 105.

  206 Harry Angstrom was a “ticket,” Updike wrote: HG, 448.

  V. The Two Iseults

  207 “There is no such thing as static happiness”: Td.

  207 he was “falling in love, away from marriage”: JU, Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu (Northridge, CA: John Lord Press, 1977), xi.

  209 a “scabby tenement” in the center of Ipswich: LP, March 27, 1960, Houghton.

  209 someone “who, equipped with pencils and paper”: AP, 145.

  209 “everything artistic is kept down here”: JU to WM, April 19, 1960, NYPL.

  209 “I’ve rented a little room”: JU to VG, March 23, 1960, Orion.

  210 This “weave of promiscuous friendship”: LL, 96.

  211 “a stag of sorts,” as he wrote in his memoirs: SC, 222.

  211 “malicious, greedy . . . obnoxious . . .”: Ibid.

  214 “a new kind of fictional space”: Td.

  215 Maxwell assured Updike: WM to JU, May 5, 1960, NYPL.

  216 “I miss Grandpa, even at this distance”: LP, September 15, 1953, Houghton.

  218 stitched-together, “fugal” form: MM, 768.

  221 “under a great pressure of sadness”: JU to Edward Hoagland, January 12, 1962, Houghton.

  222 “a biune study of complementary moral types”: HG, 449.

  222 “The main motive force behind The Centaur”: CJU, 49.

  222 “I’m carrying death in my bowels”: C, 54.

  222 his “gayest” book: CJU, 35.

  222 “I had death in my lungs”: SC, 96.

  223 “I carried within me fatal wounds”: Ibid., 97.

  223 a time of “desperation”: Ibid.

  223 “[T]o give myself brightness and air”: Ibid., 98.

  223 “We cannot reach Him, only He can reach us”: AP, 212.
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  223 “Ipswich belonged to Barth”: SC, 98.

  224 “I decided . . . I would believe”: Ibid., 230.

  224 “Religion enables us to ignore nothingness”: Ibid., 228.

  224 “The choice seemed to come down to”: BookTV.

  224 “that one’s sense of oneself”: WMRR.

  224 Once, while he was in the basement: Michiko Kakutani, “Turning Sex and Guilt into an American Epic,” Saturday Review, October 1981, 21.

  224 “[A]s I waited, on a raw rainy fall day”: SC, 97.

  224 what he himself called his “incessant sociability”: Ibid., 54.

  225 “Egoistic dread faded within the shared life”: Ibid., 55.

  225 Updike volunteered “as a favor and a lark”: MM, 807.

  225 he was surrounded by his friends, and yet in “an elevated position”: Ibid., 809.

  226 “Your literary energy has failed you here”: Author interview, Mary Webb, November 16, 2009.

  227 “The first word I wrote for him”: Author interview, ND, July 28, 2011.

  227 “For a beginner, you seem remarkably knowing”: JU, “Two Communications to Nicholas Delbanco,” in Frederick Busch, ed., Letters to a Fiction Writer (New York: W. W. Norton, 2000), 232.

  227 “What was unforgettable,” Delbanco said: Author interview, ND, July 28, 2011.

  227 Updike put the letter down: E-mail, Jonathan Penner to author, August 2, 2011.

  227 agreeing to the teaching job had been “sort of foolish”: JU to WM, August 11, 1962, NYPL.

  227 “I can’t make friends with twelve people”: Author interview, Mary Webb, November 16, 2009.

  227 “Teaching takes a lot of energy”: CJU, 157.

  228 “Her eyes were the only glamorous feature”: ES, 515.

  229 Herbert had “the manner of the local undertaker”: LP, May 18, 1958, Houghton.

  229 “I took the phone,” Mary remembered: Author interview, MW, July 14, 2012.

  230 “He was pretty darn miserable”: Author interview, MW, July 15, 2012.

  231 description expresses love: SC, 231.

  232 “one of the most peaceful and scenic places”: LP, September 14, 1959, Houghton.

  232 “a conspicuously autobiographical writer”: WM to JU, June 25, 1965, NYPL.

  233 He asked that it not be put “on the bank”: JU to WM, June 15, 1963, Illinois.

  233 “though the vessel of circumstantial facts is all invented”: JU to WM, July 19, 1963, NYPL.

  233 stories of the “non-troublesome” variety: JU to WM, June 15, 1963, Illinois.

  234 characterized by a kind of self-inflicted punishment: See William H. Pritchard, John Updike: America’s Man of Letters (South Royalton, VT: Steerforth Press, 2000), 122. (Hereafter cited as Pritchard, Updike.)