One of the stars in my personal universe passed away yesterday: John Updike. He was an author from the Northeast, and his books and stories were full of real human characters and the most masterful prose one could read. You will have encountered his work if you've read The New Yorker magazine at all in the last 30 years. He was a frequent contributor of short stories, book reviews, and commentary. You may also be familiar with his work via the 80's movie, The Witches of Eastwick. Updike wrote the original novel of the same name. (The movie is a weak adaptation, and Updike was not involved with the screenplay.) Coincidentally, just a few weeks ago, Updike published a sequel, The Widows of Eastwick.

Amongst readers of his books, Updike is probably most well known for his series of 'Rabbit' novels, featuring the lead character Harry Rabbit. Not written as a series, they depict the everyman and the everyday life of the lead character. He has the common problems of life in the 70's and 80's, but the novels are anything but common. If you've never read any Updike, the Rabbit books are an accessible 'in' to his world.

My personal favorite of his books is Couples. I've read it twice, and I feel that I could read it again. It is an intimate look at the lives and sexual follies of a group of neighboring couples.

I first encountered Updike during a sophomore writing class at UW. I wish I could recall my instructor's name so I could credit her. She introduced me (and the class) to Updike and one of my other favorite authors, John Cheever. If you've never appreciated a well-written short story, I recommend The Stories of John Cheever. I re-read this collection every several years and relearn my love of the short story.

In case you're curious, my holt trinity of writers actually contains four authors. Technically, that violates the definition of 'trinity', but there is no author I would throw out of the group as lesser in talent. Nor are there any other writers I would rank at their level. (Although, Iris Murdoch places fairly close.) The two writers accompanying Updike and Cheever, in no order, are John Irving and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. I will save discussions of them for future posts except to say, if you've seen the movie The World According to Garp but you've never read the book, then you haven't encountered John Irving at all.

And so it goes.

"Being naked approaches being revolutionary; going barefoot is mere populism."— John Updike