John Updike: American Writer, American Life
Episodes
The Sentence as Art: How John Updike and Jerome Charyn Write and What You Can Learn from Them as a Writer, Reader, or Fan
07 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
How does a great writer actually write? What makes a sentence sing?In this special craft-focused episode, cultural historian Bob Batchelor explores Jo...
Rabbit Is Rich: Toyotas, Gold Coins, and the Trap of Success
03 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
What happens when the American Dream finally comes true — and it still isn't enough?In 1981, John Updike published Rabbit Is Rich, the third nov...
Olinger Stories: Inventing a Fictional Hometown
11 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
"Olinger Stories: Inventing a Fictional Hometown"In 1968, Updike told The Paris Review: "Once you have in your bones the fundamental fe...
Shillington: The Town that Made John Updike
24 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In a 1968 Paris Review interview, John Updike said something that unlocks his entire career: "I am drawn to southeastern Pennsylvania because I k...
The American Dream Across Four Decades with Updike and Rabbit Angstrom
20 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
This episode of John Updike: American Writer, American Life takes you inside all four Rabbit novels: Rabbit, Run (1960), Rabbit Redux (1971), Rabbit I...
Why You Should Be Reading John Updike: The Writer Who Predicted Everything
11 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
John Updike wrote some of the most precise, unsettling, and prophetic fiction in American literature—and most people under forty have never heard of...
Episode 5: Updike, 9/11, and Terrorist
11 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Over the course of his six-decade career stretching from the 1950s to 2000s, great American writer and novelist John Updike received praise from count...
Episode 4: John Updike's Poetry
02 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
John Updike wrote about truth as he imagined the idea and engaged with it in his own life. He believed "God already knows everything and cannot be sho...
Episode 3: Who Was John Updike?
05 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
John Updike was born in Pennsylvania in 1932. Much of his early work, including the famed Rabbit novels and many critically acclaimed short stories we...
Episode 2: Falling in Love with John Updike
01 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Before the pandemic turned 2020 into a strange, chaotic mess, I made the decision to read some bit of John Updike's work every single day of the year,...