Selected stories & observations from the great American writer & Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Updike

John Updike was one of the greatest American writers of his generation. In a career spanning half a century, he wrote over 50 books chronicling middle-class white America in the postwar years, and its changing attitudes to sex, divorce and religion. He was the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, and won the Pulitzer Prize twice, for two volumes of his classic ‘Rabbit’ quintet.
Updike was an avid golfer for many years, and this collection opens with a selection of writings taken from his book, Golf Dreams, read by Updike himself. In five pieces, he discourses on the bliss and torment of the game, the pros and cons of caddies, an inadvertent outing to a miniature golf course and the Amazonian warriors participating in the US Women’s Open.
These entertaining reflections are followed by six outstanding short stories, four of which are narrated by John Updike. ‘The Afterlife’, set in East Anglia in 1986, explores middle age and mortality; ‘Cruise’ centres around the relationship between an older man and his much younger lover; ‘Scenes from the 50s’ sees an elderly antique dealer recalling his youth and one life-changing night in 1959; and ‘New York Girl’ finds a married man escaping domesticity in the Big Apple in the 1960s. In ‘The Faint’, read by John Guerrasio, Freddy Python wonders whether to finish with his girlfriend, and in ‘Poker Night’, read by Kerry Shale, our unnamed protagonist refuses to let a cancer diagnosis interfere with the fortnightly poker game he’s been attending for 30 years.
These stories are complemented by a fascinating documentary tracing Updike’s career from 1969, when he came to international recognition, to shortly before his death in 2009. Presented by Mark Lawson, From Midpoint to Endpoint: Talking with John Updike comprises interviews with the author, extracts from programmes such as With Great Pleasure and Arena and the writer’s readings of his own stories and memoirs – with topics including writing, sex, death, God, golf and American presidents from Hoover to Obama.

Cast and credits
Written by John Updike

Golf Dreams
Read by John Updike
Produced by Duncan Minshull
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 2-6 Mar 1998

The Afterlife
Read by John Updike
Produced by Martin Jenkins
First broadcast BBC Radio 3, 19 Dec 1992

Cruise
Read by John Updike
Produced by Martin Jenkins
First broadcast BBC Radio 3, 26 Dec 1994

Scenes from the 50s
Read by John Updike
Produced by Martin Jenkins
First broadcast BBC Radio 3, 28 Dec 1994

New York Girl
Read by John Updike
Produced by Martin Jenkins
First broadcast BBC Radio 3, 28 Dec 1996

The Faint
Read by John Guerrasio
Produced by Viv Beeby
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 2 Dec 1993

Poker Night
Read by Kerry Shale
Produced by Matthew Walters
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 23 Aug 1989

From Midpoint to Endpoint: Talking with John Updike
Presented by Mark Lawson
Produced by Robyn Read
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 4 Apr 2009

Text copyright © John Updike 1979 (The Faint), 1984 (Poker Night), 1986 (The Afterlife), 1994 (Cruise, Scenes from the Fifties), 1996 (Golf Dreams, New York Girl)
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