Synopses & Reviews
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 journalism, 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≪/i> (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.
Review
"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." < p="">Laurence W. Mazzeno, President Emeritus, Alvernia University <>
Review
"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."
< p="">James Plath, Professor of English, Illinois Wesleyan University and Author of < em=""> Conversations with John Updike < em=""> <> < p=""> <>
Review
"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." < p="">Donald J. Greiner, Carolina Distinguished Professor of English, Vice Provost, and Dean Emeritus, University of South Carolina <>
Review
"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." < p="">James Schiff, Associate Professor, University of Cincinnati <>
Synopsis
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.
Synopsis
• Demonstrates that beyond the common view of Updike as America's chronicler of the suburbs, he wrote experimental fiction that captured global issues
• Identifies how Updike used popular culture in his work, first as a way of providing context, then as a means of editorializing or critiquing American culture's growing consumerism
• Features analysis of Updike's poetry and literary criticism, two specific areas underserved in other scholarly examinations of Updike's work