John Updike

Such a shock to hear of Updike's death. American Literature lost a great writer.

I loved his New Yorker fiction and the "Rabbit" books. Updike always had his finger on our pulse, and of course we were mostly a little sick. Sometimes I look back upon the prior decades with a mixture of awe and horror. Updike was always there, recording everything.

The New York Times had a huge obit and the Globe weighed in with a large article, too. Loved those metaphors. When I took modern American literature in college, Updike wasn't taught, yet, so I had to find him for myself.

Small town life teaches us so much, if we will just attend. The suburbs, too, once you get before the boosterism and the superficial surfaces. Updike mined these locales for gold. What can one say? It's not often that a "Literary" writer produced a book a year, and ventures into so many odd places. And excels.

We will miss his twinkling eyes and his extraordinary pen.