John Updike, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, dies of lung cancer at age 76

January 27, 2:45 PMBook ExaminerMichelle Kerns

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The prolific and multiple award-winning American author, John Updike, has died of lung cancer. A long-time resident of Beverly Farms, Massachusetts, Mr. Updike won nearly every plum literary prize to be had during his career in letters, including two Pulitzer Prizes (awarded for his novels Rabbit is Rich and Rabbit at Rest), two National Book Awards, and even quite a few Bad Sex in Fiction Awards bestowed upon him by Britain's Literary Review magazine. (Take a look at one of the winning -- and embarassingly explicit -- excerpts here.) In fact, practically the only literary award to elude him was the Nobel Prize for literature.

Mr. Updike is best known for his novels chronicling the adventures, hopes, disillusionments, and sexual misadventures of the aging ex-high school basketball star Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom. The "Rabbit" series consists of five books, Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit is Rich; Rabbit at Rest; and Rabbit Remembered, and, according to Mr. Updike, is

the tale of a life, a life led by an American citizen who shares the national passion for youth, freedom, and sex, the national openess and willingness to learn, the national habit of improvisation.

Mr. Updike called Rabbit a

Protestant, haunted by God whose manifestations are elusive, yet all-important.

Mr. Updike will also be remembered as the author of The Witches of Eastwick, which was made into a film featuring memorable performances from Jack Nicholson, Cher, Susan Sarandon, and Michelle Pfeiffer. In fact, the sequel to The Witches of Eastwick, The Widows of Eastwick, is Mr. Updike's last published novel.

In recent years, Mr. Updike has been an enthusiastic proponent of sexual freedom in literature, even going so far as to give his blessing to Ravenous Romance, an ebook service that delivers snippets of erotica to the cell phones of female subscribers. According to Mr. Updike,

The world needs some good sex now....Sex is like money: only too much is enough.

Here is a fascinating interview with the inimitable Mr. Updike from a December 1st 2008 episode of Night Talk:

R.I.P. Mr. Updike.