Bech at Bay [1998] by John Updike
This is considered “minor” Updike, but I’m not that discriminating a reader and simply enjoy everything I’ve read by Updike, this included.
It’s subtitle is “A Quasi-Novel” since it’s 4 or 5 novellas strung together “quasi-closely.” The segment that’s the most controversial is “Bech Noir” where the septuagenarian Bech decides to finally get his revenge on all the critics who reviled him over the years. The first critic is dispatched with a timely nudge off a crowded subway platform. The next, who happens to write childrens’ books between reviewing gigs, gets cyanide-dosed envelopes in fake fan letters carefully authored by Bech.
He confesses to his young computer-whiz girlfriend, who he enlists to take out the next few offenders.
I can agree that Bech Noir is not “classic Updike” but it’s a hoot and an interesting window back into computer technology of the mid-90s. He writes about Sendmail, Windows 95′s “huge” RAM and CPU requirements (compared to DOS, I suppose), the Unix “pipe” operator (“|”), the 70Hz refresh rate of a CRT display, and so forth. I don’t know if he had a student vet all this stuff but I know about all that stuff and it’s remarkably technically accurate. He even had Apple Mac users pegged as a cult in itself all the way back then, more than 10 years ago.
