In this brilliant late-career collection, John Updike revisits many of the locales of his early fiction: the small-town Pennsylvania of Olinger Stories , the sandstone farmhouse of Of the Farm , the exurban New England of Couples and Marry Me , and Henry Bech’s Manhattan of artistic ambition and taunting glamour. To a dozen short stories spanning the American Century, the author has added a novella-length coda to his quartet of novels about Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom. Several strands of the Rabbit saga come together here as, during the fall and winter holidays of 1999, Harry’s survivors fitfully entertain his memory while pursuing their own happiness up to the edge of a new millennium. Love makes Updike’s fictional world go round—married love, filial love, feathery licks of erotic love, and love for the domestic particulars of Middle American life.

约翰·厄普代克（John Updike，1932-2009），集小说家、诗人、剧作家、散文家和评论家于一身的美国当代文学大师，作品两获普利策奖、两获国家图书奖以及欧·亨利奖、国家书评协会奖等众多奖项多达十数次。“性爱、宗教和艺术”是厄普代克毕生追求的创作标的，“美国人、基督徒、小城镇和中产阶级”则是厄普代克独擅胜场的创作主题，他由此成为当之无愧的美国当代中产阶级的灵魂画师。他最著名的代表作“兔子四部曲”历时三十年创作完成，全套书紧密贯通，似一气呵成，每一部又可单独成篇，共塑造了约一百五十个大小不等的鲜活人物，因此成为全面展示美国中产阶级生活图景、深刻探索美国中产阶级灵魂现状和救赎的史诗性巨著。