The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 19 September 2007
by John Updike
Sukie, Jane and Alexandra are three recently divorced women whose newfound independence allows them to develop their individuality, their freedom, and their secret witchy powers. The three of them make up a small coven in the town of Eastwick, Rhode Island. Throughout, they work their way through the men of the town, having affairs easily, seductive in their indepedence and solitude. At the opening of the book, though, the gossip is all about Darryl Van Horne, a wealthy New Yorker who settles into a long-empty mansion on the edge of town. The women soon fall for this free-spirited man, despite his animal flaws, and they spend a lot of time, together, in his hot tub. Darryl is aware of their powers, but there is something peripheral about his character. He has a lot of sex with the women, and they're clearly under his own spell, but their fluctuating desires and jealousies are the core of this novel. It takes a lot of gall for a male author to write women characters in this manner. Updike has been criticized, in this novel in particular, for failing to write three-dimensional female characters. The women are divorced, but are employed in light trades, making small art figurines, playing the cello for local church groups, writing a gossipy column for the small-town paper. Their witchy characteristics are critiqued for some stereotypical tropes. They're wicked, jealous and vindictive, using up the men of the town, but ultimately dependent on the men they conjure up. It is hard to say this is a deep failing of Updike's writing. After all, his male characters are also pretty brutally portrayed. They're sex-hungry, stupid and violent. They're dirty, sweaty and ugly. They're obsessed, as seems the author, with bodily functions. Updike's unflattering portraits seem to this reader, at least, fairly democratic. Also, the author could defend these women as fiction, after all, and witches to boot. Still, there is something missing from Updike's attempts at making these women sound independent and strong. Their own sexuality seems more male than female (women readers would know better how well he pulls that off). Their desires seem thin. And they are pretty neglectful of their numerous children, most of whom go unnamed until near the end of the book. Updike is a master, though, of depicting East Coast suburban decay and desolation. He writes with an extremely rich, layered, and entertaining language. Who is this Darryl Van Horne? He's a bit more vague than his devilish movie version (Jack Nicholson in the 1987 movie of the same name). Who are the witches? They're more wicked than their Hollywood counterparts, but they fall into a happy ending anyway.
Also by Updike:
[Rabbit, Run]
[Rabbit Redux]
[Rabbit is Rich]
[Rabbit at Rest]
[Licks of Love]
[Just Looking]
[Still Looking]
[The Centaur]
[S.]
[The Poorhouse Fair]
[Toward the End of Time]
[Of the Farm]
See also: [Updike, by Adam Begley]