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In the Beauty of the Lilies (Magill Book Reviews)

At a glance:

Updike’s seventeenth novel traces the lives of four generations of a typical American family, the Wilmots. In four separate but carefully interwoven sections, the novelist relates the stories of Clarence Wilmot, a minister in Paterson, New Jersey, who loses his faith and is forced to eke out a living as a salesman; Teddy, his youngest child, who shuns all chance at notoriety and lives quietly as a postal carrier in Delaware; Esther, Clarence’s daughter, whose life is transformed when she embarks on a film career; and Clark, Esther’s son, who shuns the Hollywood lifestyle of his...

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