Long ago, John Updike set a goal for himself: To write a book annually, with a novel at least every other year.
“There comes a time in the year when I know I want to write a novel,” Updike says.
So it was only a matter of time before he returned to one of his most commercially-successful creations, “The Witches of Eastwick,” a modern fantasy that was turned into a Hollywood blockbuster.
The first step Updike took was to reread his 1984 classic, in which three divorcees with witchcraft powers are led astray by the nefarious Darryl Van Horne, who seduces all three women and encourages them to use their magic to make trouble. The women grow jealous when Van Horne marries their friend, a young innocent named Jenny, and they use their magic to kill her.
“I was struck by how much fun it is, how much the writer enjoyed being with those women and creating the town around them,” Updike says, as if speaking of someone else. “I grew up in a small town and there is a loss of that sense of belonging. There is a danger dealing with people over 70 of idealizing the world of their childhoods. The ’30s and ’40s are not times people would want to go back to but there was a good sense of being American.”
It inspired Updike to pick up his pen – literally, since he hasn’t fully converted to the computer – and fast-forward more than 30 years to write “The Widows of Eastwick,” which “is meant to be more lighthearted than the ‘Witches’.”
In the sequel, the coven of Sukie, Jane and Lexa have split town, split up, remarried and become widowed. They still feel terrible for what they did in Eastwick and want to right their wrongs. “The book is meant to be a dimmer mirror held up to another book, There is an attempt [by the characters] to undo what was done before,” Updike says.
The new novel is designed to be read by people who didn’t read “Witches,” he adds, even though they “might benefit” since there are some special references to the original.
Reuniting, the widows travel to Canada, Egypt and China, viewing the changing world. “Because of the lapse of time I had to travel, to pan the globe almost, to a different stage,” Updike says of the novel, which he calls unusual for a sequel because of the decades-long gap in the story.
The trio then head back to Eastwick, the small New England town that was the scene of their previous mischief.
Here, Updike homes in on the changes within the US. “The town seems to them to have lost its rustic and innocent qualities.”
While the gentleman has departed, gentrification has arrived, and Updike is at his most delightful describing the people who did not grow up with computers lamenting new technology, such as the Japanese-made hybrid car one character says is “like some stealth bomber, all little cutesy international pictures and code words. I can’t imagine what it wants from me.” Updike is trying to adapt to current computer technology, although he says he falls short on the trust factor. And he decries the present day greed he says created the current economic crisis. “We have been living on credit and building castles in the air,” he says.
Of course, there’s plenty of sex, which Sukie says, “let us engage in society, kept us on our toes, and allowed us to retract our rough edges, so we can mix in.”
Updike says the characters are at an age – their 60s and 70s – when “you get back to your time and your passion.”
Few people in the town remember the coven, but those who do are still angry, particularly the brother of aforementioned rival. The women go about undoing their evil deeds as best they can, and are of course, once again, unable to resist the lure of witchcraft.
Fans of the 1987 “Witches of Eastwick” movie starring Susan Sarandon, Michelle Pfeiffer, Cher and Jack Nicholson might be disappointed to hear that there isn’t a movie in the works. “I hear Warner took a pass and I haven’t heard of any other interest,” says Updike, who adds that the original film was very different than the book (the key event of killing Jenny isn’t in the move, for instance) and says his novels generally may not be conducive to the big screen.
Besides, says the 76-year-old author, “The theme of old age doesn’t seem to fascinate Hollywood,” and the kind of pictures Bette Davis and Joan Crawford made are now rare.
So what’s next on Updike’s annual ritual? A book of short stories, called “My Father’s Tears,” after a story that appeared in the New Yorker, as have nine other stories in the 18-story book. “I don’t write [short stories] the way I used to,” Updike says. “But then again magazines don’t buy them the way they used to.”