Book Review: My Father’s Tears and other stories by John Updike

My Father’s Tears and other stories

Author: John Updike

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf

292 pages, hardcover

Reviewed by Rev. Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

John Updike was educated at Harvard and Oxford, and he lived—he died in 2009—for most of his life in Massachusetts. He wrote in several genres, including: poems, novels, short stories, essays and criticism, a play, a memoirs, and children’s books.

    Updike’s short stories in this volume share at least one thing in common—they are about 90% description and 10% character development through dialogue. I realize that it is a challenge to develop characters in the genre of short stories, however I’m left longing to know more about many of the characters in Updike’s stories. Hence the question arises: Is this intentional on Updike’s part to allude to the superficiality of so many people’s lives today, or is the author himself unable to go deeper into the lives and relationships of his characters by employing lively dialogues?

    In most of Updike’s stories, the setting is the New England states in the 20^th and 21^st centuries—there are exceptions, with American tourists visiting Morocco, India and Europe.

    The stories have several recurring themes, including: life as a journey through the various stages from childhood to becoming elderly, remembering the past and longing for it, as well as being haunted by it, sex, divorce, infidelity, strained and distant relationships in marriages and families, growing old, attempting to face death, as well as defying it, love, love lost, to list some of the more prominent ones.

    Speaking of love, the following sentence reflects the thoughts of a Lutheran son-in-law of a Unitarian minister, Reverend Whitworth, in the volume’s title story: “It is easy to love people in memory; the hard thing is to love them when they are in front of you.” (p. 202)

    In “Blue Light,” Fritz Fleischer is a rather cynical sceptical character. At the end of the story Updike may have employed a bit of a double entendre, leaving the reader wondering whether Fleischer is speaking of his dermatological condition or his grandchildren: “He could not imagine what his grandchildren would do in the world, how they would earn their keep. They were immature cells, centers of potential pain.” (p. 263)

    In his final story, Updike once again seems rather cynical and sceptical about life as expressed through a floor finisher: “People are more concerned about the floors they walk on than the loved ones they leave behind.” (p. 286)

    This volume reflects more of a cynical, sceptical worldview than a hopeful, encouraging one. Reader beware, and don’t allow this volume to depress and discourage you—1 star out of 5.