Updike, modern American literature's smoothest and most limber stylist, chose an unlikely soul for his great fictional hero: Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, an ignorant, philandering 20-something ex-jock, long past his high school glory days and feeling trapped in a job, a marriage, a town, a family that bore him. In a situation like that, running away is exactly what comes naturally to him. Rabbit is not a character calculated to inspire affection, but he is an unflinchingly authentic specimen of American manhood, and his boorishness makes his rare moments of vulnerability and empathy that much more heartbreaking.—L.G.