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.

約翰·厄普代剋（John Updike，1932-2009），集小說傢、詩人、劇作傢、散文傢和評論傢於一身的美國當代文學大師，作品兩獲普利策奬、兩獲國傢圖書奬以及歐·亨利奬、國傢書評協會奬等眾多奬項多達十數次。“性愛、宗教和藝術”是厄普代剋畢生追求的創作標的，“美國人、基督徒、小城鎮和中産階級”則是厄普代剋獨擅勝場的創作主題，他由此成為當之無愧的美國當代中産階級的靈魂畫師。他最著名的代錶作“兔子四部麯”曆時三十年創作完成，全套書緊密貫通，似一氣嗬成，每一部又可單獨成篇，共塑造瞭約一百五十個大小不等的鮮活人物，因此成為全麵展示美國中産階級生活圖景、深刻探索美國中産階級靈魂現狀和救贖的史詩性巨著。