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John Updike, Younger |
John Updike: The Collected Stories
20-minute audio interview |
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John Updike, Older |
From his first collection, The Same Door, released in 1959, to his last, My Father’s Tears, published fifty years later, John Updike was America’s reigning master of the short story, “our second Hawthorne,” as Philip Roth described him. Here, in two authoritative volumes, are 186 unforgettable stories, beginning with “Ace in the Hole” (1953), a sketch of a Rabbit-like ex-basketball player written when Updike was a Harvard senior, and concluding with “The Full Glass” (2008), the author’s “toast to the visible world, his own impending disappearance from it be damned.” In this audio interview with Christopher Carduff, editor of the collection, we gain insights into Updike’s writing style, temperment and a “monk-like dedication” to his craft. Based on new archival research and superbly edited by Christopher Carduff, each story is presented in its final definitive form and in order of composition, established here for the first time. As a special feature, each volume contains a previously uncollected story: “A Game of Botticelli” (1954) and “Part of the Process” (1988). Sold separately or in a deluxe boxed set designed by Chip Kidd and featuring Alex Katz’s iconic 1982 portrait of the author, this unprecedented collection of American masterpieces is not just the publishing event of the season, it is a national literary treasure. John Updike died of cancer in 2009, but through his stories, he lives on. The Library of America, is an award-winning nonprofit publisher dedicated to preserving america’s best and most significant writing. Christopher Carduff is the editor of John Updike’s posthumous collections Higher Gossip: Essays and criticism (2011) and Always Looking: Essays on Art (2012). Christopher has been a consulting editor for The Library of America since 2006. He lives in Melrose, Massachusetts.
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John Updike Lives On in New Story Collections: Editor’s Audio Interview
