The most closely related literary precedents are the first two novels in the series, Rabbit, Run (1960) and Rabbit Redux (1971).

In the first, a twenty-six-year-old Rabbit flees his pregnant wife and their toddler son to search for the elusive spark of the divine, or "it," as he so crudely puts it. He is convinced that God does not want him to settle for his "second-rate" life, and so he runs, in ever-tighter circles, ultimately ending the novel back at the starting blocks.

Ten years later, Rabbit reappears in Rabbit Redux, a novel which portrays the character struggling to cope with life in the tumultuous '60s. On the jacket flap to the first edition of this novel, Updike gives Webster's definition of his title term, "redux": "Lit., led back; specif. Med., indicating return to health after disease."

For Rabbit Is Rich, however, it appears that Updike has...