'There, in Russia five years ago, when Cuba had been taken out of the oven to cool and Vietnam was still coming to a simmer, Bech did find a quality of life - impoverished yet ceremonial, shabby yet ornate, sentimental, embattled, and avuncular-reminiscent of his neglected Jewish past.'
In these two short stories, Updike's brilliant observational acuity is matched by a light, comic touch. The writer Henry Bech travels to Europe on a hapless cultural exchange, first to Russia, where he struggles to spend his money when everything - from his meals to his bugged hotel room - is already paid for, and then to Rumania.
This book includes Rich In Russia, Foreword, Bech in Rumania, Appendix A and Appendix B.
- ISBN10 0141196254
- ISBN13 9780141196251
- Publish Date 15 February 2011
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 4 December 2015
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
- Imprint Penguin Classics
- Format Paperback
- Pages 96
- Language English