Rabbit at Rest

In John Updike’s fourth and final novel about Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, the hero has acquired a Florida condo, a second grandchild, and a troubled, overworked heart. His son, Nelson, is behaving erratically; his daughter-in-law, Pru, is sending him mixed signals; and his wife, Janice, decides in midlife to return to the world of work. As, through the year of 1989, Reagan’s debt-ridden, AIDS-plagued America yields to that of the first George Bush, Rabbit explores the bleak terrain of late middle age, looking for reasons to live and opportunities to make peace with a remorselessly accumulating past.Winner of the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.“Brilliant . . . It must be read. It is the best novel about America to come out of America for a very, very long time.”The Washington Post Book World“Powerful . . . John Updike with his precisian’s prose and his intimately attentive yet cold eye is a master.” Joyce Carol Oates, The New York Times Book Review