The Poorhouse Fair
176 pages
|Published: 13 Mar 2012
|Editions
|Details
This edition
ISBN: 9780345468239
Format: Paperback
Language: English
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Publication date: 13 March 2012
Description
“Brilliant. . . Here is the conflict of real ideas; of real personalities; here is a work of intellectual imagination and great charity. The Poorhouse Fair is a work of art. ”— The New York Times Book Review
The hero of John Updike’s first novel, published when the author was twenty-six, is ninety-four-year-old John Hook, a dying man who yet refuses to be dominated. His world is a poorhouse—a county home for the aged and infirm—overseen by Stephen Conner, a righteous young man who considers it his duty to know what is best for others. The action of the novel unfolds over a single summer’s day, the day of the poorhouse’s annual fair, a day of escalating tensions between Conner and the rebellious Hook. Its climax is a contest between progress and tradition, benevolence and pride, reason and faith.
Praise for The Poorhouse Fair
“A first novel of rare precision and real merit. . . a rich poorhouse indeed. ” —Newsweek
“Turning on a narrow plot of ground, it achieves the rarity of bounded, native truth, and comes forth as microcosm. ” —Commonweal
The hero of John Updike’s first novel, published when the author was twenty-six, is ninety-four-year-old John Hook, a dying man who yet refuses to be dominated. His world is a poorhouse—a county home for the aged and infirm—overseen by Stephen Conner, a righteous young man who considers it his duty to know what is best for others. The action of the novel unfolds over a single summer’s day, the day of the poorhouse’s annual fair, a day of escalating tensions between Conner and the rebellious Hook. Its climax is a contest between progress and tradition, benevolence and pride, reason and faith.
Praise for The Poorhouse Fair
“A first novel of rare precision and real merit. . . a rich poorhouse indeed. ” —Newsweek
“Turning on a narrow plot of ground, it achieves the rarity of bounded, native truth, and comes forth as microcosm. ” —Commonweal
