I don’t suppose it’s easy to be someones kid, especially when you follow in their footsteps and take up the same occupation. For David Updike that must have been brutally difficult, and dealing with your own hopes and dreams while your father fulfilled his over and over. I was surprised when Entertainment Weekly ran a story on this book, and it’s author. It’s not everyday that EW takes this kind of risk, and writing a piece about someone who doesn’t like to suck blood is a risky proposition even for a magazine with morals as sturdy as EW’s.
It can be intriguing for a man to look back on his life and write a little something about every women he’s dated, which is what I thought this book was about, and in a sense it could still be that kind of book. I just dipped my toe into the first story ‘Geranium’ and it took me a while to get into it as I was looking for David Updike’s father in these pages, having just started reading the Maples Stories.
Michael has moved into a boarding house, more like a Victorian home as the only single man and instantly is taken by the owner, his land lady, who is as Michael tells us is…halfway between his age and his parents. He watches her move up the stairs in front of him, but naturally he swallows the urge to tell her how he feels. Michael is part of a large construct, the residents of this boarding house all seem to fit in, the noisy neighbor, the working girl, and of course Mrs. Charters who runs the place, and who Micheal has fallen in love with.
It’s not a big story, and it certainly isn’t as exotic as some short stories try to be. Updike isn’t trying to stuff a lot into these little moments, Michael is an observer as much as he’s a participant, and it’s not everyday that we read stories like this…where life just goes on and on. Michael instantly finds an age appropriate girlfriend but doesn’t stop watching Ms. Charters from the corner of his eye. Everyone ends up in a safe place at the end of this story, but I can see Micheal’s mind wandering, especially the longer he lives in that house.
-JR
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