Wells is Professor of English at California State University, Dominguez Hills. As a literary scholar, he is known primarily for his Tycoons and Locusts: Hollywood Fiction in the 1930s and Mark Twain's Guide to Backgrounds in American Literature. In the following essay, Wells draws comparisons between Updike 's"A&P" and James Joyce's famous story of adolescent epiphany, "Araby."

John Updike's penchant for appropriating great works of literature and giving them contemporary restatement in his own fiction is abundantly documented - as is the fact that, among his favorite sources, James Joyce looms large.

With special affinity for Dubliners, Updike has, by common acknowledgment, written at least one short story that strongly resembles the acclaimed "Araby," not only in plot and theme, but in incidental detail. That story, the 1960 "You'll Never Know, Dear, How Much I Love You" - like "Araby" - tells the tale of a...