John Updike died today of lung cancer. He will be remembered as one of America’s greatest writers. I love his short stories, especially A&P. I never tire of reading this story.
In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits. I’m in the third check-out slot, with my back to the door, so I don’t see them until they’re over by the bread. The one that caught my eye first was the one in the plaid green two-piece. She was a chunky kid, with a good tan and a sweet broad soft-looking can with those two crescents of white just under it, where the sun never seems to hit, at the top of the backs of her legs. I stood there with my hand on a box of HiHo crackers trying to remember if I rang it up or not. I ring it up again and the customer starts giving me hell. She’s one of these cash-register-watchers, a witch about fifty with rouge on her cheekbones and no eyebrows, and I know it made her day to trip me up. She’d been watching cash registers forty years and probably never seen a mistake before.
Nicholson Baker’s U&I is a humorous tribute to Updike if you’ve never read it. It’s been a few years but I may have to reread this book. Tonight I raise my glass to Mr. Updike.
the loss of John Updike makes me wonder if the literary world is being replenished at the same rate that it’s losing such great writers