0 Contemporary Literature, 1970 to Present
Criticism
Kerry Ahearn, “Family and Adultery: Images and Ideas in Updike’s Rabbit Nov-
els,” Twentieth Century Literature, 34 (Spring 1988): 62–83.
Examines the impact of adultery on marriage and the community and Updike’s
choice to depict sex in an explicit fashion.
Richard G. Androne, “‘Never the Right Food’: Eating and Alienation in John
Updike’s Rabbit Angstrom Saga,” in You Are What You Eat: Literary Probes
into the Palate, edited by Annette M. Magid (Newcastle upon Tyne, England:
Cambridge Scholars, 2008), pp. 330–345.
Examines food and eating as substitutes for satisfaction in the Rabbit novels.
Peter J. Bailey, Rabbit (Un)Redeemed: The Drama of Belief in John Updike’s Fiction
(Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2006).
Examines conflicts between faith and doubt in Updike’s works, with chapters
on each of the Rabbit novels and the novella “Rabbit Is Remembered.”
Sven Birkerts and David Foster Wallace, “Twilight of the Phallocrats,” New York
Observer, 12 October 1997.
Twin articles arguing that the self-absorption of characters such as Rabbit is
also a fault of the author. Birkerts’s contribution is not online, but Wallace’s
“John Updike, Champion Literary Phallocrat, Drops One; Is This Finally the
End for Magnificent Narcissists?” can be found at http://www.observer.com/
node/39731 [accessed 4 March 2010].
Marshall Boswell, John Updike’s Rabbit Tetralogy: Mastered Irony in Motion
(Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2001).
Treats the four novels as one cohesive work, emphasizing Updike’s dialectical
vision. Boswell gives strong, close readings of each novel, as well as demonstrat-
ing how they work together to form a unified whole.
Lawrence R. Broer, ed., Rabbit Tales: Poetry and Politics in John Updike’s Rabbit
Novels (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1998).
Twelve essays by leading Updike scholars, covering such topics as Rabbit as
an Adamic hero and history, family psychology, sports, the work ethic, and the
middle class in the Rabbit novels.
Jan Clausen, “Native Fathers,” Kenyon Review, new series 14 (Spring 1992):
44–55.
Compares the Rabbit novels, particularly Rabbit Redux and Rabbit at Rest, with
John Edgar Wideman’s Philadelphia Fire (1990), offering a feminist critique and
an assessment of the depth of their respective engagements with racial issues.
Jack De Bellis, John Updike: The Critical Responses to the “Rabbit” Saga (Westport,
Conn.: Praeger, 2005).
Invaluable resource for tracing the history of the reception of the Rabbit nov-
els. De Bellis shows that the acclaim grew with each installment and indicates
resources to consult for each critical debate or issue.