John Updike may have been the only really famous writer I have ever laid eyes on. I won't say that I actually met him, although I did stand around in his kitchen looking out the window and drinking the cup of tea that his wife had made me. Meanwhile, John was wandering across the yard in his blue knit cap doing nothing in particular.

I went to college with his stepson and, due to series of unforeseen circumstances involving a commuter train strike, was temporarily stranded in Beverly Farms after a job interview. So Mrs. U picked me up at the station and brought me home until her son could arrive to drive me back to Boston.

I was 21 and had not yet read any Updike novels; so while I was certainly cognizant of his fame, I was actually more impressed by the fact that Mrs. Updike had made me tea in the microwave instead of using a tea kettle. This was 1986, and I had never lived in a house with a microwave. I think Mrs. U may have also picked me up at the station in some kind of fancy Jaguar-like sports car, but for some reason the microwaved tea made a deeper impression on me.

Unlike my own mother, Mrs. U had a coiffure and seemed altogether elegant and sophisticated. It struck me as odd, as I watched her husband wandering around the yard, that she had settled for a puttering middle-aged man in a frumpy hat.

Twenty years later her attachment seems less odd, especially now that I've read the Rabbit series so many times (except for the first book: see my War and Peace essay for an explanation). While Updike's work was certainly uneven, the Rabbit books have had a tremendous influence on my conception of character and motivation. They are so observant, so frighteningly observant, of the minutiae that form our lives. The only novelist who comes close is Richard Ford. But he doesn't surpass Updike.

Part of the problem with Updike's weaker novels is that his eye for minutiae can overwhelm his management of other novelistic elements. But the Rabbit novels strike a balance. Moreover, the later books in the series are stronger than the earlier ones, which has meant that rereading them has only intensified my attachment to Harry Angstrom and his preoccupations.

In my list of great books, the Rabbit novels would certainly appear. Maybe I will go back and read them right now. Maybe I'll even attempt to face the first one again.