In Memory of John Updike, 1932-2009

CHRISTIANITY AND LITERATURE In Memory of John Updike, 1932-2009 His own asthma induced terror ofthat ultimate abyss devoid of ski trips and suburban volleyball. A churchgoer by habit, . he invested in God, then diversified his stock. He was a flawed Lutheran who became a Puritan upon settling in New England, an Episcopalian to please his second wife. I see him at the bend of a path, headed to a white church near the sea on some bright Sunday in January. Our brave new Dimmesdale. In a Brooks Brothers suit and polished black shoes, he knows the correct clothes for Bible study and the best for Thursday golf. And if you question my love, my daughterly affection for this courtly, bourgeois man, just know that I found courage and comfort to face the day, 287 288 CHRISTIANITY AND LITERATURE that abyss, in the crafted phrases that he wrote, one word coupled with care to another, pair by pair, until the words multiplied, sentences running like rabbits across the page, three pages a day, eighteen pages a week, sixty books in a lifetime, this corpus the fruit of his devout toil to pick up and cradle each piece of the fallen world as he would a brilliant autumn leaf. RACHEL JENNINGS ...