My Father's Tears and Other Stories explained

My Father’s Tears and Other Stories
Author:John Updike
Country:United States
Language:English
Genre:Short Stories
Pub Date:2009
Media Type:Print (hardcover)
Pages:304
Isbn:9780307271563

My Father’s Tears and Other Stories is a collection of 18 works of short fiction by John Updike. The volume was published posthumously in 2009 by Alfred A. Knopf and is the final collection to date of Updike’s stories.[1] [2]

Stories

The stories first appeared in The New Yorker, unless indicated otherwise.[3] The collection was published posthumously.[4]

“Morocco” (The Atlantic, November 1979)

“Personal Archaeology” (May 29, 2000)

“Free” (January 8, 2001)

“The Laughter of the Gods” (February 11, 2002)

“Varieties of Religious Experience” (The Atlantic, November, 2002)

“Spanish Prelude to a Second Marriage” (Harper’s Magazine, October 2002)

“Delicate Wives” (February 2, 2004)

“The Guardians” (March 26, 2001)

“The Walk With Elizanne” (July 7, 2003)

“The Accelerating Expansion of the Universe” (Harper’s Magazine, October 2004)

“German Lessons” (Playboy, January 2006)

“The Road Home” (February 7, 2005 [originally “The Roads of Home”])

“My Father’s Tears” (February 7, 2006)

“Kinderszenen” (Harper’s Magazine, November 2006)

“The Apparition” (The Atlantic, in its ‘Summer Fiction Issue’ 2007)

“Blue Light” (Playboy, January 2008)

“Outage” (January 7, 2008)

“The Full Glass” (May 26, 2008)

Reception

Literary critic Simon Baker of The Guardian offers this mixed assessment of the collection:

Calling the collection “a memory book”[5] literary critic Eileen Battersby registers high praise for the Updike’s posthumously issued collection of short fiction:

Battersby singles out a passage from the title story “My Father’s Tears” as an appreciation:

Sources

Notes and References

  1. Carduff, 2013 pp. 948-958: Note on the Texts.
  2. Battersby, 2009: “Of the 18 stories, all but one are recent. The Roads of Home which appeared – as have nine of the others – in the New Yorker, has been retitled The Road Home.”
  3. Carduff, 2013 p. 955-956: Note on the Texts.
  4. Battersby, 2009
  5. Battersby, 2009: “Death and age are dominant themes. This is a memory book.”