- Marry Me (novel)
-
Marry Me: A Romance is a 1976 novel by American writer John Updike.
Contents
Summary
As in Updike's 1968 Couples, two married households—in this case, the Conants and the Mathiases—meet and entwine. Jerry Conant's love for Sally Mathias is the primary engine of the novel; his wife Ruth's reaction, and the reaction of Sally's husband Richard, are the story's bookends.
Reception
The novel was well-received by critics. In The Atlantic, Richard Todd enthusiastically welcomed the book: "'Marry Me,' for all its playfulness, is Updike's most mature work. His writing has deepened, grown wiser and funnier, like a face that is aging well."[1] In Newsweek, Peter S. Prescott called the novel Updike's most affecting. "This understatement, this unwavering vision fixed on only four character, is a part of what makes the story so effective. Updike's best fiction has always been his most narrowly focused; in this novel the plot is direct—complex without becoming complicated by symbols thrashing obstrusively just behind the canvas—and refreshingly free from the portentousness that has marred several of his most ambitious novels. 'Mary Me' is the best written and least self-conscious of Updike's longer fiction; it contains his most sophisticated and sympathetic portraits of women. It is quite simply, Updike's best novel yet. I can't believe that anyone married or divorced could read it without being moved."[2]
References
External links
Select works of John Updike Rabbit Novels Rabbit, Run (1960) • Rabbit Redux (1971) • Rabbit Is Rich (1981) • Rabbit at Rest (1990) • Rabbit Remembered (2001)Bech books Buchanan books Buchanan Dying (1974) • Memories of the Ford Administration (1992)Eastwick books The Witches of Eastwick (1984) • The Widows of Eastwick (2008)The Scarlet Letter trilogy A Month of Sundays (1975) • Roger's Version (1986) • S. (1988)Other novels The Poorhouse Fair (1959) • The Centaur (1963) • Of the Farm (1965) • Couples (1968) • Marry Me: A Romance (1976) • The Coup (1978) •Brazil (1994) • In the Beauty of the Lilies (1996) • Toward the End of Time (1997) • Gertrude and Claudius (2000) • Seek My Face (2002) • Villages (2004) • Terrorist (2006)Short story collections The Same Door (1959) • Pigeon Feathers (1962) • Olinger Stories (1964) • The Music School (1966) • Museums and Women (1972) • Too Far to Go (1979) • Problems (1979) • Trust Me (1984) • The Afterlife (1994) • Licks of Love (2000) • The Early Stories (2003) • My Father's Tears (2009)Poetry collections The Carpentered Hen (1958) • Telephone Poles (1963) • Midpoint (1969) • Tossing and Turning (1977) • Facing Nature (1985) • Collected Poems (1993) • Americana (2001) • Endpoint (2009)Adaptations Rabbit Run • The Witches of Eastwick • EastwickCategories:- 1970s novel stubs
- Novels by John Updike
- 1976 novels
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
