Word: shillington
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...more than 30 years, John Updike has borne, with considerable poise and good humor, a terrible burden. He is one of those people whose prayers were answered. Growing up a beloved only child in Shillington, a small town in southeastern Pennsylvania, he dreamed of becoming a writer, of seeing his work appear on the pages of The New Yorker. And -- presto! -- these things occurred and were then followed by unanticipated consequences: lots of money, critical recognition and fame. Worse fates have befallen people, and Updike adjusted as best he could: he cashed the checks, entertained intrusive interviewers and basked modestly...
...stalled, though, just below the steep incline of road that rises through Updike's nine acres. It will arrive, some time soon, just as surely as scholars, journalists, graduate students and the idly curious have been tracking down Updike's past for years. They make pilgrimages to Shillington, Pa., where the author was born and spent his first 13 years. They then proceed to the old stone farmhouse outside town where he and his parents moved in 1945. They find his mother Linda, 78, still living there, cheerful, alert and willing to guide visitors through the landscape that...
Updike's continuing interest in Harry Angstrom has led some to suspect that Rabbit is an alter ego, the author's version of what he himself could have become had he not left Shillington, Pa., for Harvard and a glittering literary career. "Well," Updike laughs, "I'm a good deal shorter than he is" (Rabbit is 6 ft. 3 in.; his creator 6 ft.). They differ in other ways too; the attraction seems to be one of opposites...
...kind of goodness going down with all the guns firing-antic, frantic, comic, but goodness nonetheless." Though the novel is obscured by unnecessary buttresses of Greek mythology, the portrait of Wesley Updike, in all its wonderful mania, sparkles with life. Wesley Updike is still mentioned in hushed tones in Shillington for his unpredictable teaching methods. One winter day, he suddenly dashed out of, his classroom in the middle of a lesson on decimals. Moments later, he reappeared with a handful of snow, raced to the blackboard, and triumphantly slammed the snowball against the spot decreed for the decimal point...
...Scandal. During the past few years, Ipswich has at last been taking over from Shillington as the prod to Updike's imagination, and his short stories have abandoned their boyhood themes and begun to examine the years of his maturity. Like Piet Hanema struggling to accept his God, Updike has suffered doubts...