John Updike’s memoirs consist of six Emersonian essays that together trace the inner shape of the life, up to the age of fifty-five, of a relatively fortunate American male. The author has attempted, his foreword states, “to treat this life, this massive datum which happens to be mine, as a specimen life, representative in its odd uniqueness of all the oddly unique lives in this world.” In the service of this metaphysical effort, he has been hair-raisingly honest, matchlessly precise, and self-effacingly humorous. He takes the reader beyond self-consciousness, and beyond self-importance, into sheer wonder at the miracle of existence.
- ISBN10 0394577957
- ISBN13 9780394577951
- Publish Date 1 May 1989
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 13 March 2021
- Imprint Alfred A. Knopf
- Format Hardcover
- Language English