In an interview conducted in 1998, John Updike described Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, the protagonist of Rabbit Run (1961), Rabbit Redux (1971),. Rabbit is Rich (1981), and Rabbit at Rest (1996)

Iwanted to describe American life as it's seen by one of its losers, a man who, in the American style, peaked quite early Who has made a fetish of youth because his own youth was his best period Who has been looking for feel-good sensations ever since Who mixes religion and sex shamelessly and helplessly, because these are the two areas in which there's some kind of transcendence His good qualities to me were that he was lively and innocent enough to be interested Things dawned on him somewhat slowly He wasn't a New Yorker who was ahead of the trends He's a Wordsworthian observer, constantly surprised

Source Will Hochman and Ellen Spiegel "An Interview with John Updike...