Poorhouse Fair

About this book

The first novel from a master of American letters and the author of the acclaimed Rabbit series: 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 Updikes 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 poorhousea county home for the aged and infirmoverseen 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 summers day the day of the poorhouses 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. Appended with a discussion of the books inspiration its aesthetic sources and models in classics of science fiction and the way in which its future (projected to be about 1977) compares with the present. The Poorhouse Fair was written in 1957 and published in January of 1959. It was hailed at the time of its publication as a rare and beautiful achievement and a work of intellectual imagination and great charity. Though its future has degenerated into our present and Updikes later work is better known such critics as Henry Bech have hailed this little novel as still surely his masterpiece.