The Poorhouse Fair: A Novel |
|
|---|---|
| Authors: | Updike, John |
| Publisher: | Random House Publishing Group |
| BISAC/Subject: | FIC019000, FIC025000, FIC039000 |
| ISBN: | 9780679645771, Related ISBNs: 0679645772, 9780679645771, 0345468236, 9780345468239, 0394410505 |
| Classification: | Fiction |
| Number of pages: | 176, |
| Audience: | General/trade |
Synopsis: “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
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