Literary Fiction · MelancholicRetired Harry Angstrom spends winters in Florida while his son runs the family car dealership
Rabbit at Rest
by John Updike
A retired car salesman in Florida tries to find a reason to keep going
Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom and his wife Janice, married for thirty-three years, have retired to Florida for the cold months. Harry is overweight and low, and he is struggling to find reasons to keep going. Their son Nelson runs the family Toyota dealership in Pennsylvania, and the visits home bring Harry back into the lives of his children and grandchildren. It is the last book in a series that follows him from 1960 to 1990.
More about this book
Who
Harry Angstrom, nicknamed Rabbit; his wife Janice; their son Nelson, who runs the family car dealership; and their young grandchildren, Judy and Roy.
World
Florida and Pennsylvania in 1988 and 1989. The series as a whole follows Harry from 1960 to 1990.
What makes it different
It is the fourth and final novel in Updike's Rabbit tetralogy, after Rabbit, Run, Rabbit Redux and Rabbit Is Rich. It won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and is the second Rabbit novel to do so.
Feel
A long, steady portrait of a man in his late fifties, funny and rueful in places.
Page count and cover shown for: Selected edition
Further reading
- Rabbit at RestWikipedia