UPDIKE, John.
Marry Me.
Franklin Center, PA: The Franklin Library , 1976.
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Signed limited first edition of John Updike's Marry Me; Additionally inscribed by the author to Erica Jong and Ken Burrows
Signed limited first edition of Updike's eighth novel. Octavo, bound in full leather, gilt titles to the spine, front and rear panels, all edges gilt, silk endpapers. Additionally inscribed by the author to Erika Jong and Ken Burrows. The recipient, Erica Jong remains best known for her 1973 novel Fear of Flying which became famously controversial for its portrayal of female sexuality and figured prominently in the development of second-wave feminism. Written in the first person and narrated by its protagonist, 29-year-old American poet Isadora Wing, Fear of Flying was written in the throes of the Sexual Revolution of the 1970s and encapsulated the movement’s redefinition of female sexuality. In interviews, Jong stated: “At the time I wrote Fear of Flying, there was not a book that said women are romantic, women are intellectual, women are sexual—and brought all those things together... What [Isadora is] looking for is how to be a whole human being, a body and a mind, and that is what women were newly aware they needed in 1973.” The novel remains a feminist classic and has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide. From the library of Erica Jong and Ken Burrows. In near fine condition.
“Marry Me is superb, sharp, witty, perceptive, honest. . . . With keen intelligence, Updike has cut a slice of life the width of one town, the height of one feverish summer, the depth of four people trying to understand why their center does not hold—and turned it into a mirror of our modern popular wisdom" (Chicago Daily News). It was well received by critics. In The Atlantic, Richard Todd enthusiastically welcomed the book: "'Marry Me,' for all its playfulness, is Updike's most mature work. His writing has deepened, grown wiser and funnier, like a face that is aging well."[1] In Newsweek, Peter S. Prescott called the novel Updike's most affecting. "This understatement, this unwavering vision fixed on only four characters, is a part of what makes the story so effective. Updike's best fiction has always been his most narrowly focused; in this novel the plot is direct—complex without becoming complicated by symbols thrashing obstrusively just behind the canvas—and refreshingly free from the portentousness that has marred several of his most ambitious novels. 'Mary Me' is the best written and least self-conscious of Updike's longer fiction; it contains his most sophisticated and sympathetic portraits of women. It is quite simply, Updike's best novel yet. I can't believe that anyone married or divorced could read it without being moved."
Marry Me.
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