[Deathwatch] John Updike, author, 76

[Deathwatch Central <cdw@slick.org>]

John Updike dies aged 76

By Jason Szep
Tuesday, January 27, 2009

BOSTON (Reuters) - American author John Updike, a leading writer of his
generation who chronicled the emotional drama of American small-town
life with searing wit and vivid prose, died on Tuesday of lung cancer.
He was 76.

"It is with great sadness that I report that John Updike died this
morning," said Nicholas Latimer of Alfred A. Knopf, a unit of Random
House. "He was one of our greatest writers, and he will be sorely
missed."

Updike died in a hospice in Massachusetts, the state where he lived for
many years.

Updike was known for mining themes of sexual tension, and spiritual and
moral angst in small-town settings -- issues he explored through his
four novels and a novella about the life of the fictional Harry
"Rabbit" Angstrom.

"Rabbit is Rich," published in 1981, won the Pulitzer Prize for
fiction. A decade later, "Rabbit at Rest" won a second Pulitzer.

One of America's most prolific writers, Updike was acclaimed nearly as
much for his short stories, poetry and critical essays as for his
novels.

For many readers, he was well known as a seemingly endless source of
short stories in The New Yorker magazine.

Born in Reading, Pennsylvania, he studied English at Harvard
University, where he contributed to, and later edited, the satirical
Harvard Lampoon magazine. He later joined the writing staff of the New
Yorker.

In a Reuters interview in 2005, he said his view of himself as a writer
had changed in recent years as he produced an increasing volume of art
and literary criticism and struggled with the short-story medium.

When asked which genre he preferred -- short stories, novels, poetry or
criticism -- he paused.

"If I had been asked that 10 years ago I would have said short stories
is where I feel most at home. I'm not sure I do feel totally at home
any more, whether I have maybe written all my short stories," he said.

"In a short story, as short a form as it is, you've got to make
everything count toward a certain effect at the end. That's maybe a
muscular feat that I've lost muscle to perform," he added. "But anyway
I'm still trying."

He was candid about the need to get writing published and paid for,
saying:

"I've become much more of a book reviewer and an art reviewer for that
matter than I ever planned to. At least there is a comfort when you sit
down to write one of these that you'll be sure that it will get printed
and you'll get paid for it. It's not the case with a short story."

Many thanks to Deathwatch Central for posting this obituary