Product Description The renowned Henry Bech is now fifty years old. In this wonderful classic novel, Bech reflects on his fame, travels the world, marries an Episcopalian divorcée from Westchester, and--surprise to all--writes a book that becomes a runaway bestseller. If you've never read Updike before, there's no better place to start. If you've read him for years, you'll be delightfully reminded of John Updike's rightful place in the pantheon of quintessential American writers.From the Trade Paperback edition. Review “Bech is back all right, but only after paying a large and painful price. . . . Updike reflects in these pages on the odd and unsettling ways in which art can impinge upon life, the ways in which a book acquires a life of its own that seems wholly unrelated to that of the person who created it, the ways in which celebrity separates those upon whom it is bestowed from reality.”—The Washington Post  “Mr. Updike finds full scope for his gifts here: for sly and cheerfully malicious pensées on contemporary literary life; for busy observations on human behavior.”—The New Yorker   “[Updike] at the top of his craft.”—Time From the Inside Flap The renowned Henry Bech is now fifty years old. In this wonderful classic novel, Bech reflects on his fame, travels the world, marries an Episcopalian divorcée from Westchester, and--surprise to all--writes a book that becomes a runaway bestseller. If you've never read Updike before, there's no better place to start. If you've read him for years, you'll be delightfully reminded of John Updike's rightful place in the pantheon of quintessential American writers.From the Trade Paperback edition. About the Author John Updike was born in Shillington, Pennsylvania, in 1932. He graduated from Harvard College in 1954 and spent a year in Oxford, England, at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art. From 1955 to 1957 he was a member of the staff ofThe New Yorker. His novels have won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Rosenthal Foundation Award, and the William Dean Howells Medal. In 2007 he received the Gold Medal for Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. John Updike died in January 2009.