Easton Press: SIGNED: JOHN UPDIKE: SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS: MEMOIRS: FIRST ED.

Description: Easton Press leather edition of John Updike's "Self-Consciousness: Memoirs," a COLLECTOR'S edition, a SIGNED FIRST EDITION, published in 1989. Bound in hunter green leather, the book has gold French moire silk end leaves, a satin book marker, Symth-sewn binding, hubbed spine, gold gilding on three edges---in FINE condition. John Hoyer Updike, who lived from 1932--2009, was an American novelist and short story writer. When Updike's luggage was lost in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Updike says he "spent an evening walking the sidewalks of SHILLIINGTON, PENNSYLVANIA, searching for the meaning of my existence. Updike's "Memoir" begins with his childhood and adolescence in Shillington, his school years where the boys' and girls' playgrounds were segregated areas during school hours, and his awkward junior high and high school years. He wrote: In my junior year of high school, "It was courtesy of Nora that I discovered breasts are not glazed bouffant orbs . . . in the relative scale of youth and virginity, she did for me all that a woman does for a man, but not even the perfect girl would pull me down in Shillington." Updike describes his "psoriasis" skin problem and his self-consciousness when he participated in gym shorts and his "insecurity" when naked in the locker room and shower. Updike attended HARVARD COLLEGE. "Why did I marry so young?" Because, having once found a comely female who forgave me my skin, I dared not risk losing her and trying to find another." Later he wrote that he and his wife found themselves in a kind of "swim" of equally young married couples, an hour north of Boston and dependent upon each other for entertainment. "I turned thirty, then forty. My four children went to private nursery schools, then the public schools and then one by one, they drifted into private education, into the orbit of the North Shore upper class. I wrote short stories for THE NEW YORKER and later wrote RABBIT RUN and three Rabbit sequels. In the fall of 1974, I left my wife and Ipswich. Later while living on Martha's Vineyard, he was interviewed about VIETNAM, and set off a firestorm with his candid remarks. Updike writes that "I was a liberal" and a Unitarian. In a chapter entitled "A Letter to My Grandsons," he wrote: "We are all of mixed blood. . .Your father is black, the pure black of West Africa; I am half, a Pennsylvania Dutchman . . .the Updikes came to this continent in two installments. "What's in a name? "I am, it could be said, a New Jersey Updike who aspired to be a Rhode Island Updike." Love, Grandpa. "Self-Conscious" is very touching, well written diary. The book is a revelation about the famous writer and how his life revolved around his "skin problems" and other insecurities. In the last chapter Updike wrote: "For all the physical handicaps, neurotic symptoms, aberrant thought patterns, and characterological limitations, I think of myself as an amiable, reasonable, interested, generally healthy, sexually normal, dependable, hopeful, fortunate human being." 257 pages. I offer combined shipping.

Price: 54.95 USD

Location: Walnut Ridge, Arkansas

End Time: 2025-01-19T14:38:16.000Z

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