John Updike, A Month of Sundays

M. Carmen Gomez-Galisteo (Universidad Isabel I)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1975

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Just as he had rewritten classical and biblical myths in The Centaur and Couples and Shakespeare’s Hamlet in his Gertrude and Claudius, John Updike sought to rewrite Nathaniel Hawthorne’s masterpiece The Scarlet Letter in the light of contemporary American life and religious values. The result was his “The Scarlet Letter Trilogy”, consisting of A Month of Sundays (1985), Roger’s Version (1986) and S. (1988).

In the first novel in the trilogy, Updike sought “to show how radically American attitudes have changed in regard to adulterous clergy. … As any bishop can tell you, modern clergymen tend to be quite unapologetic about where …

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849 words

Citation: Gomez-Galisteo, M. Carmen. "A Month of Sundays". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 September 2009 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7050, accessed 24 November 2024.]

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