Peter Tonguette at The American Conservative:
Few American authors of the past century churned out as many words. Even peers who matched or exceeded Updike’s productivity when it came to novels, such as Philip Roth, could not keep pace when factoring in the numerous other modes in which he regularly put pen to paper: short stories, poems, book reviews, essays, a play, a memoir, and even five books for children. Multiple books appeared after his death, including a final volume of short stories, My Father’s Tears.
It should come as no surprise, then, that Updike was as expansive, candid, and prolix in his personal correspondence as he was in his writing for publication and for pay. The superb, revelatory Selected Letters of John Updike gives an indication of the eagerness with which Updike wrote to friends, family members, both his wives, countless editors, and even the occasional critic. By the same token, the stuff and substance of these letters is much like that of his much-honored fiction, including “The Music School”: ordinary life, up to and including churchgoing. “Updike was able to bestow vibrancy and meaning upon that which would otherwise seem ordinary, so that it resonates and hums,” writes James Schiff, the editor of the present volume. “In so doing, he offers us a new way of seeing and knowing our daily lives.” We find here that Updike was that rarest of things: a writer who wrote much the same in private as he did in public.
More here.
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