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The Early Stories
JOHN UPDIKE

The Early Stories by John Updike
18 reviews (2003) (864p)
PEN/Faulkner Award Winner

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Book Description
"He is a religious writer; he is a comic realist; he knows what everything feels like, how everything works. He is putting together a body of work which in substantial intelligent creation will eventually be seen as second to none in our time."
—William H. Pritchard, The Hudson Review, reviewing Museums and Women (1972)


A harvest and not a winnowing, The Early Stories preserves almost all of the short fiction John Updike published between 1954 and 1975.

The stories are arranged in eight sections, of which the first, "Olinger Stories," already appeared as a paperback in 1964; in its introduction, Updike described Olinger, Pennsylvania, as "a square mile of middle-class homes physically distinguished by a bend in the central avenue that compels some side streets to deviate from the grid pattern." These eleven tales, whose heroes age from ten to over thirty but remain at heart Olinger boys, are followed by groupings titled "Out in the World," "Married Life," and "Family Life," tracing a common American trajectory. Family life is disrupted by the advent of "The Two Iseults," a bifurcation originating in another small town, Tarbox, Massachusetts, where the Puritan heritage co-exists with post-Christian morals. "Tarbox Tales" are followed by "Far Out," a group of more or less experimental fictions on the edge of domestic space, and "The Single Life," whose protagonists are unmarried and unmoored.

Of these one hundred three stories, eighty first appeared in The New Yorker, and the other twenty-three in journals from the enduring Atlantic Monthly and Harper's to the defunct Big Table and Transatlantic Review. All show Mr. Updike's wit and verbal felicity, his reverence for ordinary life, and his love of the transient world.


Other Award Winning Books by John Updike
Gertrude and Claudius by John Updike
44 reviews (2000) (224p) (NYTimes)
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Toward the End of Time by John Updike
55 reviews (1997) (352p) (NYTimes)
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Rabbit at Rest by John Updike
46 reviews (1990) (0p) (PP) (NBCCA) (NYTimes)
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Roger's Version by John Updike
12 reviews (1986) (352p) (NBCCA) (NYTimes)
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The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike
34 reviews (1984) (320p) (LATimes)
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HUGGING THE SHORE by John Updike
4 reviews (1983) (919p) (NYTimes Non)
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BECH IS BACK by John Updike
3 reviews (1982) (208p) (NYTimes)
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Rabbit is Rich by John Updike
82 reviews (1981) (432p) (PP) (NBCCA) (NBA) (NYTimes)
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The Coup by John Updike
11 reviews (1978) (0p) (NBCCA)
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The Centaur by John Updike
33 reviews (1963) (320p) (NBA)
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John Updike Award Stats
Major Prize* Nominations 9  
Unique Books Nominated for a Major Prize* 6  
Pulitzer Prize Wins 2 Rabbit at Rest · Rabbit is Rich ·  
Pulitzer Prize Nominations 2 Rabbit at Rest · Rabbit is Rich ·  
National Book Critics Circle Award Wins 2 Rabbit at Rest · Rabbit is Rich ·  
National Book Critics Circle Award Nominations 4 Rabbit at Rest · Rabbit is Rich · Roger's Version · The Coup ·  
National Book Award Wins 2 Rabbit is Rich · The Centaur ·  
National Book Award Nominations 2 Rabbit is Rich · The Centaur ·  
Man Booker Prize Wins 0  
Man Booker Prize Nominations 0  
PEN/Faulkner Award Wins 1 The Early Stories ·  
PEN/Faulkner Award Nominations 1 The Early Stories ·  

*Major Prize = Pulitzer Prize, National Book Critics Circle Award, National Book Award, Man Booker Prize, and PEN/Faulkner Award

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Pulitzer Prize | National Book Critics Circle Award | National Book Award | PEN/Faulkner Award | Man Booker Prize | Contact