Updike introduced the character of Harry Angstrom as a young man in Rabbit Run in 1960. His nickname comes from his fame as a high school basketball player, and his inclination to run away from responsibility is clearly indicated in this first novel of the series. After his wife accidentally drowns their infant daughter, thoughts of death begin to invade and challenge his youthful sense of well-being. The fortunes of Harry Angstrom rise and fall in three more novels, but he remains a character who never regains the pleasure of success that he enjoyed as a young basketball player. Through more than a thousand pages of nostalgia and melancholy Rabbit fails to come to terms with the various stages of his life or to satisfy the repeated demands of his heart.

Harry learns more about drugs and death in the second novel of the series...