Rabbit at Rest - Wikipedia Rabbit at Rest From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search 1990 novel by John Updike This article consists almost entirely of a plot summary. It should be expanded to provide more balanced coverage that includes real-world context. Please edit the article to focus on discussing the work rather than merely reiterating the plot. (April 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Rabbit At Rest Author John Updike Country United States Language English Genre Novel Publisher Alfred A. Knopf Publication date 1990 Media type Print (hardback & paperback) Pages 512 pp ISBN 0-394-58952-1 OCLC 54047366 Dewey Decimal 813/.54 20 LC Class PS3571.P4 R23 1990 Preceded by Rabbit is Rich  Rabbit at Rest is a 1990 novel by John Updike. It is the fourth and final novel in a tetralogy, succeeding Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; and Rabbit Is Rich.[1] A related novella, Rabbit Remembered, was published in 2001. Rabbit at Rest won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1991, the second "Rabbit" novel to garner that award. Contents 1 Plot summary 2 Themes 3 References 4 External links Plot summary[edit] This novel is part of the series that follows the life of Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom from 1960 to 1990. Rabbit at Rest focuses on the years 1988–89. Harry, nearly 40 years after his glory days as a high school basketball star in a mid-sized Pennsylvania city, has retired with Janice, his wife of 33 years, to sunny Florida during the cold months, where Harry is depressed, dangerously overweight and desperate for reasons to keep on living. Unable to stop nibbling corn chips, macadamia nuts and other junk food, Rabbit nearly dies after a heart attack while sunfishing with his nine-year-old granddaughter, Judy. In a "redemption" of the drowning death of his infant daughter Rebecca in the earlier novel Rabbit, Run, he saves Judy from drowning during their sunfishing afternoon. He is distracted from his own existential worries by the acts of his drug-addicted son, Nelson, to whom Janice (the actual owner of the Angstroms' wealth) has given control of the family's thriving business, a Pennsylvania Toyota dealership. The discovery that Nelson has been stealing from the company to support his drug habit causes Harry to lose the family business. Despite his multiplying difficulties, Rabbit manages to take solace in the presence of Judy, who has matured into a beautiful and charming young lady, reminding him of his high-school glory days. He is less attached to his four-year-old grandson Roy, who seems wary and fearful of Rabbit, much like Nelson. While recuperating from heart surgery, Rabbit recognizes a nurse, Annabelle Byer, as his illegitimate daughter by his old girlfriend, Ruth. He spends time with her without identifying himself as her likely father. Then, his long-term mistress, Thelma Harrison (wife of his high-school nemesis Ron), dies of lupus. Ron confronts Harry at Thelma's funeral, but the men later reconcile over golf. Harry also encounters Cindy Murkett at the funeral, a woman he had once been obsessed with, and is saddened to see she has become an obese and bitter divorcee. After Nelson comes back from a treatment program, and Janice begins work as a real estate agent, the family finds out that Harry has had a one-night stand with Pru, Nelson's wife, on the night after he was released from the hospital. Janice's anger over this betrayal prompts Harry to escape to Florida. While in hiding, Harry has a heart attack shortly after winning a one-on-one basketball game with a local youth (echoing the opening of Rabbit, Run in which Harry impulsively joins a group of teenagers playing basketball). Nelson and Janice reach Harry's bedside while he is still alive. Janice forgives him for his infidelities and he reconciles with his son. His personal business now largely resolved, Rabbit dies. Themes[edit] The novel deals with the passage of time, and generational change. Harry's decline mirrors the decline of the United States which, in the period the novel is set, lacks what Harry saw as its animating purpose: the Cold War.[2] References[edit] ^ Meyer, Dick (28 January 2009). "John Updike At Rest". NPR. Retrieved 11 February 2020. ^ Olster, Stacey (Spring 1991). "Rabbit Rerun: Updike's Replay of Popular Culture in "rabbit at Rest"". Modern Fiction Studies. 37 (1): 45–59. doi:10.1353/mfs.0.0243. JSTOR 26283176. External links[edit] Wikiquote has quotations related to: Rabbit at Rest New York Times review Photos of the first edition of Rabbit At Rest v t e Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 1918–1925 His Family by Ernest Poole (1918) The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington (1919) The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (1921) Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington (1922) One of Ours by Willa Cather (1923) The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson (1924) So Big by Edna Ferber (1925) 1926–1950 Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis (declined) (1926) Early Autumn by Louis Bromfield (1927) The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder (1928) Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin (1929) Laughing Boy by Oliver La Farge (1930) Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer Barnes (1931) The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck (1932) The Store by Thomas Sigismund Stribling (1933) Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Pafford Miller (1934) Now in November by Josephine Winslow Johnson (1935) Honey in the Horn by Harold L. Davis (1936) Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (1937) The Late George Apley by John Phillips Marquand (1938) The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1939) The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (1940) In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow (1942) Dragon's Teeth by Upton Sinclair (1943) Journey in the Dark by Martin Flavin (1944) A Bell for Adano by John Hersey (1945) All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren (1947) Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener (1948) Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens (1949) The Way West by A. B. Guthrie Jr. (1950) 1951–1975 The Town by Conrad Richter (1951) The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk (1952) The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (1953) A Fable by William Faulkner (1955) Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor (1956) A Death in the Family by James Agee (1958) The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor (1959) Advise and Consent by Allen Drury (1960) To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1961) The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor (1962) The Reivers by William Faulkner (1963) The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau (1965) The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter by Katherine Anne Porter (1966) The Fixer by Bernard Malamud (1967) The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron (1968) House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday (1969) The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford by Jean Stafford (1970) Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner (1972) The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty (1973) No award given (1974) The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara (1975) 1976–2000 Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow (1976) No award given (1977) Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson (1978) The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever (1979) The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer (1980) A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (1981) Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike (1982) The Color Purple by Alice Walker (1983) Ironweed by William Kennedy (1984) Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie (1985) Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (1986) A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor (1987) Beloved by Toni Morrison (1988) Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler (1989) The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos (1990) Rabbit at Rest by John Updike (1991) A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley (1992) A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler (1993) The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx (1994) The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields (1995) Independence Day by Richard Ford (1996) Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser (1997) American Pastoral by Philip Roth (1998) The Hours by Michael Cunningham (1999) Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (2000) 2001–present The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon (2001) Empire Falls by Richard Russo (2002) Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (2003) The Known World by Edward P. Jones (2004) Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (2005) March by Geraldine Brooks (2006) The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2007) The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz (2008) Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (2009) Tinkers by Paul Harding (2010) A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (2011) No award given (2012) The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson (2013) The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (2014) All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (2015) The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (2016) The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (2017) Less by Andrew Sean Greer (2018) The Overstory by Richard Powers (2019) The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (2020) v t e Selected works of John Updike Rabbit novels Rabbit, Run (1960) Rabbit Redux (1971) Rabbit Is Rich (1981) Rabbit at Rest (1990) Rabbit Remembered (2001) Eastwick books The Witches of Eastwick (1984) The Widows of Eastwick (2008) Other novels The Poorhouse Fair (1959) The Centaur (1963) Of the Farm (1965) Couples (1968) Marry Me: A Romance (1976) The Coup (1978) Roger's Version (1986) Memories of the Ford Administration (1992) Brazil (1994) In the Beauty of the Lilies (1996) Toward the End of Time (1997) Gertrude and Claudius (2000) Villages (2004) Terrorist (2006) Short story collections The Same Door (1959) Pigeon Feathers (1962) Olinger Stories (1964) Too Far to Go (1979) Trust Me (1987) The Early Stories (2003) My Father's Tears (2009) Poetry collections The Carpentered Hen (1958) Telephone Poles (1963) Settings and characters Henry Bech Brewer Adaptations Rabbit, Run Too Far to Go The Witches of Eastwick (film) The Witches of Eastwick (musical) Eastwick Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rabbit_at_Rest&oldid=997652418" Categories: 1990 American novels Pulitzer Prize for Fiction-winning works Novels by John Updike Alfred A. Knopf books Fiction set in 1988 Fiction set in 1989 English-language novels Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description is different from Wikidata Articles to be expanded from April 2018 All articles to be expanded Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version Languages Deutsch Français Italiano Edit links This page was last edited on 1 January 2021, at 16:13 (UTC). Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. 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