Critical Consensus for 6/1: John Updike’s My Father’s Tears and Other Stories
John Updike
In My Father’s Tears and Other Stories, John Updike (who passed away in January) returns to the small town settings he is known for and explores life through the eyes of several aging, male narrators. There are hints of autobiography throughout, which should thrill fans of his 2003 collection The Early Stories, 1953-1975. Rather than experimenting with forms outside his comfort zone, Updike “sticks here to what he does best: memorializing the mundane, the ordinary joys and sorrows and confusions of suburban middle class life” (NY Times). This is a book to complement any Updike collection.
The title story, “My Father’s Tears,” was originally published in The New Yorker in 2006 and can be read on their site. For a glimpse at the rest of the collection, you can read an excerpt here. See what the experts are saying below.
“A perfect bookend to ‘Pigeon Feathers,’ the precocious collection of stories that nearly five decades ago announced their 30-year-old writer’s discovery of his own inimitable voice.” - Michiko Kakutani, NY Times
“Updike compresses the strata of a life in his delicately rendered, tremendously moving posthumous collection.” - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Small, controlled and carefully detailed pieces, studded here and there with those flashes of stunning bits of pure writing that Updike was so skilled at.” - Bob Hoover, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“Most of these stories evoke Updike’s Olinger and environs at least in passing, nicely complementing the 2003 retrospective collection The Early Stories, 1953-1975, with its tantalizing hints of autobiography.” - Library Journal
“A fine final act.” - Kirkus Reviews
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