There's a fine new John Updike story in "The New Yorker". Not revolutionary, but lovely. If “The Full Glass” were his final story (God forbid), it would be a sweet and graceful exit. It's easy to take Updike for granted—he can be exhausting—but for some years now, he's been tracking the advancing age of the prototypical ‘Updike man’, those white suburban men whose sexual improprieties the writer exulted in so vividly in “Couples” and “A Month of Sundays” and a zillion other novels and stories. In this story, the narrator is 80 (Updike is 76) and though I’m not an expert, I can't think of another living writer who’s so purposefully matching his main character’s aging process to that of his own. When I read these stories (at coffee shop counters, inevitably) I always think that it won't be a surprise if John Updike finds a way to file one last short story with “The New Yorker” when he himself gets to the great beyond—Heaven or Hell, described in achingly exquisite detail.
http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2008/05/26/080526fi_fiction_updike
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