Old Master in a Brave New World

I FEEL AS IF IN THE PAST 10 OR 15 YEARS YOU'VE BEEN IN A RESTLESS, EXPLORING MOOD, PUSHING YOURSELF BEYOND THE REALM OF THE TRADITIONALLY UPDIKEAN BOOK. YOU'VE WRITTEN MAGIC REALISM AND SCIENCE FICTION AND NOW A THRILLER. Part of my setting up shop was the idea that I should produce a book a year--that this was a better way to run being a writer than to think of yourself as a kind of a priest-prophet, the way American writers like Norman Mailer--the esteemed Norman Mailer--did. Now, with modern medicine, and modern Protestant lifestyle, I've lived long enough that the books keep coming--time to write a novel, time to write a novel. So you look for things that will amuse you and in some way challenge you. A different world.

My one best seller ever really was a book called Couples, about American domestic life in the '60s. I felt I had something to say about that. I had the feeling as a child that there was something more going on in this household--with the discontents of both parents, and the tensions, and even the kind of comedy that we perpetrated for our little in-house audience--that all this was more complicated than most fiction was showing. And so I began with the premise that there was more to say about domestic life. I can bring some new light on that.

So sure, I've been looking for escapes and ways to vary my reach. I do want to vary my song as much as I can while I'm still singing. Because I won't be singing forever.

To read the first chapter of Terrorist before the book hits stores, go to time.com/updike