📼 Biographical Insights: A Conversation with Michael Updike 

I recently had the pleasure of talking with Michael Updike about his father, John Updike, and his famous character, Henry Bech. Here is some of that conversation*:

Joseph: Your father, in 1964, went to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe as an American Cultural Ambassador and, when he returned to America, he (as one scholar writes) “needed a vessel to voice his impressions of the places he had visited and the people he had encountered. To this purpose, he created the character of Henry Bech”. This makes it very difficult to separate him from his character; even though he himself said that Bech was ‘an anti-Updike, as far as [he] could conceive of one.’” I was wondering if you had any insights into your father's time in these countries—or how his journey there might have impacted him upon return. If so, what were some of the ways these trips impacted him? Did he talk about them much, or did he keep the discussion of those trips largely to Bech? 

Michael: My father didn’t talk much about his trip to Russia, Romania and Bulgaria, but I was very young. My Pennsylvania grandparents watched us while they were away. I remember the Russian presents they brought back which seemed quite exotic although I imagine they were bought at an intourist shop. I do know that my father had to be debriefed by the US government after the trip; I would love to find that report. After that trip Ipswich MA was a destination for traveling Russians in good and bad relations with the soviet party. I [even] met Yevtushenko in my house when coming home from second grade. 

Joseph: That's so interesting, both that he didn't talk much about the trips and also that you found yourself in a bit of a hub, even at such a young age. On a semi-related note, have you traveled to these countries yourself? Have you seen or done anything while traveling there that might differ from your father's experiences?

Michael: I’ve traveled to Russia under communism [once under] Brezhnev and twice under Putin. But all three times as a tourist. St. Petersburg now feels like any European City, however the weight of communism still lingers. 

Joseph: Thinking back on the first question, what are your thoughts on Bech as an "anti-Updike"? When you look at Bech, do you see your father in him, or do his efforts to distance himself from the character work? Scholars are split on this, but I think you have perhaps the most unique perspective on this problem.

Michael: I think he did need a vessel to relay his writer specific experiences. He is letting the reading  audience in on his joke by making him so comically opposite Updike: Jewish, New Yorker, no family, writers block. And later giving him the Nobel Prize and the moxie to murder his critics. 

Joseph: And more specifically about whether it works, I have to ask: do you think the decades of scholars reading his work autobiographically, despite these efforts, means that he failed in distancing himself or that he was right—that people just want to, no matter the truth of the matter, read their way into the author's personal life? Is this desire so strong that no amount of distance can save an author from this problem?

Michael: I may have fallen into the same trap of reading the [stories] as autobiographical but with a Bech clown suit on. We know Bech is unreal but his experiences genuine. There are a few instances in my father's life that I wish were Bech stories or--can I make up a word?--Bechized.  He was in a small helicopter crash in Venezuela. And his appendicitis in Cleveland was a story "The City" but I feel it would be better as an adventure for Bech. 

Joseph: That's a great point I hadn't even considered, that you'd have seen things you wish may have made it into these stories or become Bechized, as you say. Is there anything else you think would be interesting to know about your father, Bech, the stories, or just anything in general about what we've discussed today?

Michael: I’ll share a curious artifact from my father's Russian trip that recently surfaced from a friend of my wife visiting the Sergei Paradjanov museum in Armenia. My father gave him the self portrait and Paradjanov collaged it.

If you would like to learn more about Michael Updike, his artwork can be found here.

*Portions of this conversation are soon to appear in my article for The John Updike Review.