John Updike (1932 - 2009)

John Updike, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, prolific man of letters and erudite chronicler of sex, divorce and other adventures in the postwar prime of the American empire, died Tuesday at age 76.

I saw John Updike give a reading at the University of Richmond in 1985 or '86. The auditorium was so packed that I had to sit in the aisle, as I recall. It seemed like a momentous occasion in my young life at the time. All I really remember specifically from that day is that he read a poem about a waterbed ("To A Waterbed"), which was pretty funny. And he seemed like a reasonably self-effacing guy. His short story "A&P" is one of my all-time favorites. First we lose David Foster Wallace, and now John Updike!

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