A stunning, moving collection of poems that Updike wrote during the last eight years and put together only weeks before he died for this his final book. The opening sequence, “Endpoint,” is made up of a series of poems written often on birthdays in recent years and culminating in Updike’s account of his final illness. At once a celebration of his life as a writer, an appreciation of the people and the circumstances that helped nourish his passion, and a reckoning with old age and the ominous cloud of death, these poems make up an eloquent and moving narrative of this extraordinary writer’s life.
- Endpoint and Other Poems by John Updike
- On sale: March 31, 2009
- First printing: 30,000
- Knopf Hardcover: 112 pages/ISBN 978-0-307-27286-7/ $25.00 ($29.95C)