Jezebel: John Updike

Rabbit At Jest

Anna Holmes — Thu, 28 May 2009 10:10:00 EDT

[Hollywood, May 26. Image via Getty]

R.I.P. John Updike

Sadie Stein — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 13:55:00 EST

John Updike, the prolific, Pulitzer-winning writer, has died at 76. The cause was lung cancer. More »

Rabbits, Witches, Updike, Bitches

lizzieskurnick — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:00:00 EST

Hi all! I was a little burned out—100K words' worth burned, let's say—on YA for a Fine Lines, and my Shelf Pleasuring transmuted itself into a work on the sequel without my doing. But no matter! There is still much more YA to be had. To be updated on the book and to see the cover, you can subscribe to the mailing list, and/or friend me on Facebook as "Shelf Discovery". There will be Plotfinders, there will be vintage scans, there will be giveaways, there will be events and announcements. In a week or two, because setting these things up almost cracked my frail brain.

John Updike has written a sequel to the...

Jessica G. — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 16:20:00 EDT

John Updike has written a sequel to the Witches of Eastwick, the Widows of Eastwick, both of which are written from the perspective of three women, whom New York's Emily Nussbaum describes as "a coven of divorced mothers in a small New England town." Nussbaum is disappointed with Widows, as she finds it unsympathetically misogynistic. "Updike’s awed malice seems to have curdled into something like contempt... Their artistry, a major element of the original book, has dwindled to a nub: Alexandra spins a pot or two, Jane has abandoned her passionate cello playing, and Sukie writes gloppy romances, the hack effusions of a silly woman." It begs the question: can male writers write from the female perspective without falling into stereotypical traps? [NY Mag] More »

Is There Anything More Painful Than Watching A Dude "Mancrush" On Another Dude?

Moe — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 12:00:00 EDT

Next month's Vanity Fair's examines the horror wreaked by the "man crush" upon our civilization in recent years: apparently Karl Rove formed a Man Crush on George W. Bush, who in turn nursed a mutual man crush on Tony Blair. Less disastrously, Nicolson Baker had a hardon for Updike. Every male member of the Washington press corps has crushed on John McCain just like every vaguely nebbishy college dude crushes on Obama and every pro-capitalist business journalist crushes on Jack Welch. (Oh yeah, and every guy also crushes on Tom Brady.) My friend Steve forms man crushes so frequently he has a standard line for when he's telling me about a new one: "And then we split a Luna bar." Which made me wonder: Women, you know, get girlcrushes all the time and it's no deal. So what is it about the man crush that is so excruciating to watch? I figured it out. More »