{"product_id":"updike","title":"Updike","description":"\u003cp\u003en this magisterial biography, Adam Begley offers an illuminating portrait of John Updike, the acclaimed novelist, poet, short-story writer, and critic who saw himself as a literary spy in small-town and suburban America, who dedicated himself to the task of transcribing “middleness with all its grits, bumps and anonymities. \u003cbr\u003e\nUpdike explores the stages of the writer's pilgrim's progress: his beloved home turf of Berks County, Pennsylvania; his escape to Harvard; his brief, busy working life as the golden boy at The New Yorker; his family years in suburban Ipswich, Massachusetts; his extensive travel abroad; and his retreat to another Massachusetts town, Beverly Farms, where he remained until his death in 2009. Drawing from in-depth research as well as interviews with the writer's colleagues, friends, and family, Begley explores how Updike's fiction was shaped by his tumultuous personal life-including his enduring religious faith, his two marriages, and his first-hand experience of the “adulterous society  he was credited with exposing in the bestselling Couples.\u003cbr\u003e\nWith a sharp critical sensibility that lends depth and originality to his analysis, Begley probes Updike's best-loved works-from Pigeon Feathers to The Witches of Eastwick to the Rabbit tetralogy-and reveals a surprising and deeply complex character fraught with contradictions: a kind man with a vicious wit, a gregarious charmer who was ruthlessly competitive, a private person compelled to spill his secrets on the printed page. Updike offers an admiring yet balanced look at this national treasure, a master whose writing continues to resonate like no one else's.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Adam Begley","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44223997706300,"sku":"9780061896453","price":4046.25,"currency_code":"PKR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0714\/7706\/7836\/files\/updike-9780061896453.jpg?v=1776771184","url":"https:\/\/libertybooksstore.myshopify.com\/products\/updike","provider":"LibertyBooksStore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}