bookpublishing

Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist John Updike passed away today at 76 from lung cancer. The New York Times writes:

Updike, best known for his four ”Rabbit” novels, died of lung cancer at a hospice near his home in Beverly Farms, Mass., according to his longtime publisher, Alfred A. Knopf.

A literary writer who frequently appeared on best-seller lists, the tall, hawk-nosed Updike wrote novels, short stories, poems, criticism, the memoir ”Self-Consciousness” and even a famous essay about baseball great Ted Williams.

He released more than 50 books in a career that started in the 1950s, winning virtually every literary prize, including two Pulitzers, for ”Rabbit Is Rich” and ”Rabbit at Rest,” and two National Book Awards.

We will truly miss Updike’s poetic way with words. I really appreciate this description from the NYT article:

He captured, and sometimes embodied, a generation’s confusion over the civil rights and women’s movements, and opposition to the Vietnam War. Updike was called a misogynist, a racist and an apologist for the establishment. On purely literary grounds, he was attacked by Norman Mailer as the kind of author appreciated by readers who knew nothing about writing. Last year, judges of Britain’s Bad Sex in Fiction Prize voted Updike lifetime achievement honors.

It’s so odd that this should happen today because I was chatting with two acquisitions editors here about asking him to write forewords for the George Plimpton books we’re reissuing.

You will be missed, John!