John Hoyer Updike   [1932-2009]

Arts and Letters

John Updike is of a distant Dutch background. His ancestors came to the United States in the seventeenth century. Their Dutch name was Op de Dijk, which has over time been changed to Updike and in some cases to Opdike. The Updike descendants have worked out quite an extended family tree which is available on the web.

John Updike is an amazing and prolific writer. He has published over 60 books during his writing career, not counting his contributions in the New Yorker, and received numerous awards and recognitions for his work. In 1981, he received his first Pulitzer Prize, in fiction, for his book, “Rabbit is Rich”. Ten years later he received his second Pulitzer Prize, in fiction, for his book, “Rabbit at Rest”. At that time he was only the third American to win a second Pulitzer Prize in fiction. In 1989, he was awarded the National Medal of Art by President George H. W. Bush, and in 2003, he was awarded the National Medal for the Humanities by President George W. Bush. Again he is one of very few Americans to have received both of these honors.

John Updike was born in Reading, Pennsylvania on March 18, 1932. His family lived near Reading, in Shillington, Pennsylvania, during his childhood years. His father was a high school science teacher. Following his high school years, Updike attended Harvard University, on a tuition scholarship, where he majored in English. While there he worked on and, in his senior year, became the president of the “Harvard Lampoon”. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard in 1954. Updike married Mary Pennington, a fellow Harvard student, during their senior year at Harvard. Following graduation, he and his wife then spent the following year at Oxford, England, where Updike attended Oxford’s Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art.

Following a year in England, in 1955, Updike was hired as a staff writer at the New Yorker and the Updike’s settled down in Manhattan, New York. He spent two years at the New Yorker, but decided to leave New York City in 1957, when the couple’s second child, a son, was born. The first child was a daughter born while the Updike’s were in England.

The Updike’s moved to Ipswich, Massachusetts, a setting more appropriate to raise a growing family than Manhattan. Updike decided to write full time, but over the years he has retained ties with the New Yorker, and has continued to contribute to the New Yorker over time. Updike’s first full time output consisted of two books on poetry entitled, “The Carpentered Hen and Other Tame Creatures”, published in 1958, and “Ex-Basketball Player”, also published in 1958.

In 1959, he published his first novel entitled, “The Poorhouse Fair”. And in 1960, he published his first “Rabbit” book, entitled, “Rabbit, Run”. He would publish four more “Rabbit” books in the future, including, “Rabbit Redux”, in 1971, “Rabbit Is Rich”, in 1981, “Rabbit At Rest”, in 1990, and a novella, “Rabbit Remembered”, in 2001.

In 1970, he started the “Bech” series of novels. The first book was, “Bech, a Book”, published in 1970, followed by “Bech Is Back”, published in 1982, and “Bech at Bay”, published in 1998. He also published the two “Buchanan” books. The first book was, “Buchanan Dying”, published in 1974, and the second book was, “Memories of the Ford Administration”, published in 1992.

Updike’s other novels in chronological order were, “The Centaur”, in 1963, “Of the Farm”, in 1965, “Couples”, in 1968, “A Month of Sundays”, in 1975, “Marry Me”, in 1977, “The Coup”, in 1978, “The Witches of Eastwick”, in 1984, “Roger’s Version”, in 1986, “S.”, in 1988, “Brazil”, in 1994, “In the Beauty of the Lilies”, in 1996, “Toward the End of Time”, in 1997, “Gertrude and Claudius”, in 2000, “Seek My Face”, in 2002, “Villages”, in 2004, and “Terrorist”, in 2006.

 Updike’s other output consisted of several collections of short stories, poetry and non-fiction essays. The short story collection numbered thirteen, published between 1959 and 2003. His poetry output consisted of a total of eight publications, published between 1959 and 2001. And his non-fiction essays and criticisms amounted to eleven, published between 1965 and 2007. In addition he wrote six children’s books, published between 1962 and 2006. During his entire writing career, Updike published over 60 publications, excluding his short stories, reviews and poems which have appeared in the New Yorker since the late 1950’s.

During his writing career, Updike received numerous awards and recognitions, over and above the four awards mentioned above. He also received the National Book Critics Circle Award twice. He also won the American Book Award, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Also in 2006, he received the Rhea Award for the short story.

Until his death, Updike resided in Beverly Farms, Massachusetts with his second wife, Martha Ruggles Barnhard. He married his first wife, Mary Pennington when both were students at Harvard in 1954. The couple had four children. In 1977, Updike and Pennington divorced, and in that same year Updike married Martha Ruggles Bardhard. Barnhard then already had three children from a previous marriage.

John Updike passed away early in 2009. His death was mourned by many. The national media, including television and the printed media, gave extensive coverage to his passing. He was mourned by many, and continuation of his literary output will be missed by many.

 

REFERENCES

Order books by John Updike

John Updike, http://www.answers.com/topic/john-updike

John Updike, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Updike

John Updike Biography, http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/upd0bio-1

 

E-BOOKS AVAILABLE FROM AMAZON; GOOGLE: Kindle Store Pegels

 

PROMINENT DUTCH AMERICANS, CURRENT AND HISTORIC

EIGHT PROMINENT DUTCH AMERICAN FAMILIES: THE ROOSEVELTS, VANDERBILTS AND OTHERS, 2015

FIFTEEN PROMINENT DUTCH AMERICAN FAMILIES: THE VAN BURENS, KOCH BROTHERS, VOORHEES AND OTHERS, 2015

PROMINENT DUTCH AMERICANS IN U.S. GOVERNMENT LEADERSHIP POSITIONS, 2015

 

DUTCH PEGELS INVOLVED IN WARS

ALLIED EUROPE CAMPAIGN—1944/1945: TACTICAL MISTAKES, 2017

THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN THE NETHERLANDS: MEMOIRS, 2017

FRENCH REVOLUTION, NAPOLEON AND RUSSIAN WAR OF 1812, 2015

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