[Problems and Other Stories shows once again that John Updike] is pre-eminent among contemporary writers of the short story, once thought the most American of literary forms. It is not that he has moved the form forward, as, for example, Hemingway did by forcing it into a new idiom, but that he has brought the dominant type of today's story—the New Yorker story—to its highest excellence. The type is characterized by sophistication, texture, smooth craftsmanship, and, on occasion, ingenuity of device…. "Shallow people get hurt, too," wrote critic Tom Shales this year, commenting on the television treatment of Updike's characters, the Maples, and thus summed up the basic appeal of an Updike story.

Shallow people suffer, too! The middle class living their surface lives on "the curve of sad time" have found in Updike their chronicler. He is skilled in conveying the substance of that life...