The Maples Stories

by John Updike

Hardcover, 2009

Publication

Everyman Library (2009)

Collections

Your library, 1000 Books (Mustich), Wishlist, To read

Tags

20th Century & Contemporary American, Short Fiction

Genres

Subjects

Married people United States Fiction

Awards

National Book Award (Finalist — 1980)
The New York Times Best Books of the Year (1979)

Description

Fiction. Literature. Short Stories. HTML: Collected together for the first time in hardcover, these eighteen classic stories from across John Updike�??s career form a luminous chronicle of the life and times of one marriage in all its rich emotional complexity.   In 1956, Updike published a story, �??Snowing in Greenwich Village,�?� about a young couple, Joan and Richard Maple, at the beginning of their marriage. Over the next two decades, he returned to these characters again and again, tracing their years together raising children, finding moments of intermittent happiness, and facing the heartbreak of infidelity and estrangement. Seventeen Maples stories were collected in 1979 in a paperback edition titled Too Far to Go, prompted by a television adaptation. Now those stories appear in hardcover for the first time, with the addition of a later story, �??Grandparenting,�?� which returns us to the Maples�??s lives long after their wrenc… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member AshRyan
In the introduction to this collection of stories about the disintegration of the marriage of Richard and Joan Maple, Updike says their moral is that "nothing is perfect." That is of course true in a sense, but such a trivial one that we hardly need Updike to tell us so. The real message is that
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 nothing is even good, as most of these stories are simply about how poorly his fictional couple treat one another without giving us more than a glimpse at any other side of their characters, making it almost impossible to sympathize with them---though there are a couple of exceptions that almost make the rest of them worth slogging through. And they are, for the most part, beautifully written, which is of value in and of itself.
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LibraryThing member Dlmcgow
Wonderful collection of stories that gives the reader an intimate look at middle-class Boston in the middle of the 20th century. As I reader, I became engrossed in the family life of the Maples and the success of their relationship. I was fascinated by the various angles Updike used to paint a
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 literary portrait of this New England family from youthful newlyweds to grandparents. They are flawed characters in every way and exploring and understanding their mistakes gives the Maples such depth. I really enjoyed the compilation and seeing how their story made its way through the decades and various publications. Fantastic read.
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LibraryThing member ValerieAndBooks
Richard and Joan Maple are a fictional couple who author John Updike revisited, in short-story form, many times over the span of Updike's long and productive literary career. All of the Maples stories are gathered together here in this Everyman's Pocket Classics edition, in basic chronological
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 order. Therefore, we first see Richard and Joan early in their marriage, then in the next story when their four children are very young, then we see their marriage disintegrating over several stories. Finally, in the last story, they are divorced and married to others and awaiting the birth of their first grand child.

I've read a few of the Maple stories here and there in other Updike short story collection. They definitely pack more of a punch being collected together in this format. In this way, it reads much more like a novel than a series of short stories.

While reading The Maples Stories, I had the sense that the characters were real, the dialogue real, the feelings real. Updike was known to carry over much from his real-life experiences into his writings, and this is especially evident in these stories. As a result, Richard and Joan Maple become real people and quite unforgettable.
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LibraryThing member SigmundFraud
The Maple Stories is a collection of John Updike's earlier stories. Though stories they are related, evolve chronologically and read like a novel.A "novel" of manners we follow the life of Joan and Richard Maple from marriage and four children through divorce and remarriage. I can't say the stories
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 break new ground but they are very well written and definitely worth a detour.
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Language

English

Original language

English

ISBN

1841596035 / 9781841596037

Physical description

256 p.; 4.88 inches

Pages

256

Rating

½ (46 ratings; 3.9)

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