Bech at Bay (Paperback, 1st Ballantine ed)

Henry Bech, the moderately well known Jewish-American writer who served as the hero of John Updike's previous Bech: A Book (1970) and Bech Is Back (1982), has become older but scarcely wiser. In these five new chapters from his life, he is still at bay, pursued by the hounds of desire and anxiety, of unbridled criticism and publicity in a literary world ever more cheerfully crass. He fights intimations of annihilation in still-Communist Czechoslovakia, while promiscuously consorting with dissidents, apparatchiks, and Midwestern Republicans. Next, he succumbs to the temptations of power by accepting the presidency of a quaint and cosseted honorary body patterned on the Académie Française. Then, the reader finds him on trial in California and on a criminal rampage in a gothic Gotham, abetted by a nubile sidekick called Robin. Lastly, our septuagenarian veteran of the literary wars is rewarded with a coveted medal, stunning him into a well-deserved silence. It's not easy being Henry Bech in the post-Gutenbergian world, but somebody has to do it, and he brings to the task an indomitable mixture of grit and ennui.


From the Hardcover edition.

General

Imprint:	Random House Trade Paperbacks
Country of origin:	United States
Series:	Bech, 3
Release date:	October 1999
First published:	October 1999
Authors:	John Updike
Dimensions:	209 x 139 x 13mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback - Trade
Pages:	256
Edition:	1st Ballantine ed
ISBN-13:	978-0-449-00404-3
Categories:	Books > Fiction > General & literary fiction > Modern fiction Promotions
LSN:	0-449-00404-X
Barcode:	9780449004043

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