A reader would be hard pressed to name a contemporary author other than John Updike whose work is more in tune with the way most Americans live. Unconcerned with apocalypse in his fiction, undeterred by the universal absurdity that threatens to negate the bravest and the best, Updike writes about ordinary people leading ordinary lives. Man, wife, home, children, job--these mundane concerns have rested at the heart of his art since he published his first book, a volume of poetry titled The Carpentered Hen and Other Tame Creatures, in 1958, and they have continued to help him dissect, lovingly and clearly, the daily routine of Middle America in small town and suburb.

War is generally not an issue for Updike, and neither are the problems of space weapons, worldwide hunger, or the fouling of the planet. The concerns in Updike's writing do not make front-page news, but they do...