From his childhood in the eastern Pennsylvania village of Willow in the 1930s, to his innovative software company in tiny Middle Falls, Connecticut, to his retirement years in twenty-first-century Haskells Crossing, Massachusetts, Owen Mackenzie finds his life irrevocably altered by the communal humanity of the small towns in which he lives. Reprint. 50,000 first printing.
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In this wry novel of sentimental education and sexual pursuit, we follow Owen Mackenzie, a representative man of the author’s generation, from cradle to grave, and from bed to bed. His life and relationships are shaped by three villages, warm-lit communities that keep the darkness at bay from within and without. In Willow, Pennsylvania, the young Owen is transfixed by his first glimpses of female beauty. In Middle Falls, Connecticut, he marries, becomes a first-wave computer programmer, and discovers the very grownup pleasures of serial adultery. Finally, married for a second time, he retires with his memories, illusions, and fantasies to the somewhat geriatric community of Haskells Crossing, Massachusetts. John Updike turns Owen’s personal odyssey into a radiant, sensual fable of the seasons of a man’s life—and of the getting of wisdom in America.
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