Couples | Couples

At a glance:

Author: John Updike
First Published: 1968
Type of Plot: Erotic realism
Time of Work: The summer and autumn of 1963 and the winter and spring of 1964
Setting: Tarbox, Massachusetts, a fictitious town in Plymouth County, southeast of Boston along the Atlantic coast
Principal Characters: Piet Hanema, Elizabeth “Foxy” Whitman, Angela Hanema, Ruth Hanema, Ken Whitman, Freddy, Matt, Roger, Frank, Harold, Eddie, Ben, John
Genres: Long fiction
Subjects: 1960’s
Locales: Tarbox, MA

The story of Couples is relatively simple, but the plot is extraordinarily convoluted and complex. At the beginning of the novel, nine middle-class or upper-middle-class couples, mostly in their thirties, with mortgages, children, pets, and professions, live in an interconnected social world in the fictitious bedroom community of Tarbox, located slightly south of Boston in Plymouth County. The appearance of a young couple who move to Tarbox from Cambridge causes a series of realignments within the group and finally, by the novel’s end, two divorces, and...

Couples | Couples

At a glance:

The Novel

Join eNotes