Rabbit, Run by John Updike

I really should have finished this novel a lot sooner than I did. I just didn't have much time to sit down and read over the last few weeks. Rabbit, Run by John Updike is a compelling read, a real page-turner, which is odd for a book that is largely a character study.

Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom is a young man in his mid-20s with a pregnant wife and a 2 year-old child. Harry was a high school basketball star and he doesn't adjust well from moving from the spotlight of the basketball court to being an average guy leading an average life. Rabbit feels trapped in his life and decides, rather on the spur of the moment, to leave his rapidly-turning-alcoholic wife. He has a 3 month affair with a non-classic prostitute, then returns to his wife on the night she's giving birth to their daughter. In the interim, we learn of the difficulties of the families Rabbit has run away from. After a short time at home, Rabbit leaves again after his wife (fairly fresh from giving birth) won't have sex with him. This sends her into an amazingly written alcoholic fog the next day...and the worst happens. Rabbit rejoins the family, and yet runs again at the end of the novel...though we have no idea of to where.

I now understand why John Updike can be such a jerk when he's writing book reviews. He's got the chops to back it up. It ain't braggin' if you're this good. I wish James Joyce would have lived long enough to read this book. It shows that you can do stream of consciousness-esque writing for short periods without it reading like a gimmick. Janice Springer's alcohol-fueled day after Harry's second leaving...you're in her head. Updike does an amazing job of making you feel some sort of empathy for all of the characters in the book...and some distaste for many of them too. It's a foggy world and people are trying to get by. They may not be doing their best (many of them seem to be driven by lust), but you understand some of why they feel the way they do. Rabbit, Run is a heart-breaking and amazing book about the drudgery and ordinariness middle-class life and how one person's rash actions can have a ripple effect on many other lives.