John B. Updike's Short Story "Trust Me"

John B. Updike is a novelist, poet, short story author, playwright, children’s book author, literary critic, art critic, and essayist. Updike is one of the world’s most versatile, serious, and prolific writers. Though his writing style and subjects vary greatly, he is committed to addressing the moral, social, and cultural conditions of his generation. Updike was born on March 18, 1932 and raised in a small town by the name of Shillington, Pennsylvania, right outside of Reading. He lived there as an only child, until the age of thirteen. As he grew older, he attended Harvard University, where he majored in English and contributed to and later edited the Harvard Lampoon. In 1955 he married his first wife Mary Pennington, with whom he had his four children. After the first marriage was dissolved, he married Martha Bernhard in 1977. They were happily married and lived in Beverly Farms, Massachusetts, until his death on January 27, 2009, from lung cancer. Throughout his life he wrote more than 50 books and short stories, one being “Trust Me.” “Trust Me” was written in 1987 and was one of John Updike’s primary works.

In John B. Updike’s short story, “Trust Me,” he doesn’t follow a set setting for the entire story. He jumps to many different settings in the story, the first being a swimming pool. Harold, the main character, is a young boy at the swimming pool with his mother and father, where he attempts to jump into the swimming pool while his father is waiting to catch him. He goes to jump into his father’s arms, but his father doesn’t catch him, so he fell into the water not knowing how to swim. Years later, he married his first wife who had dreaded flying. They were on an airplane and he promised her that if her f...

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...st of his time, people believe that he only writes fiction, that’s where they’re wrong. Updike is actually a fiction and non-fiction writer; therefore, his stories could be related to his own life. That said, “Trust Me” is one of them.

Works Cited

Greiner, Donald J. "John Updike: The Literary Vermeer." Critique 51.2 (2010):

177-184. Academic Search Complete. Web. 23 May 2010.

Pritchard, William H. "Remembering John Updike: A Critic and His Decades-Long Correspondence with one of America's Best ‘Freelance Writers...’’’ American Scholar 78.3 (2009): 115-117. Academic Search Complete. Web. 23 May 2010.

Johnson, Jeffrey. "Updike's Passions." Christian Century 126.6 (2009): 12-13. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 24 May 2010.

Hunt, George W. "Updike at Rest." America 16 Feb. 2009: 5. Academic Search Complete. Web. 24 May 2010.