Olinger Stories

These autobiographical stories about growing up in small-town Pennsylvania are among John Updike’s best, and were the closest to his heart.

Selected by the author from his first eight years of work for The New Yorker, these tales set in the fictional town of Olinger were first gathered in one volume in 1964, in a paperback edition that has long been out of print. They are brought together again now - for the first time ever in hardcover - in a fiftieth-anniversary edition.

The eleven stories include ‘Pigeon Feathers’ in which a farm boy’s innocent faith is tested by the seeming faithlessness of parents and clergy; ‘The Happiest I’ve Been’, a timeless tale of leaving home and taking the first steps towards adulthood; and ‘Packed Dirt, Churchgoing, A Dying Cat, A Traded Car’, a reverie on the everyday that is, magically, as detailed and eventful as any novel. Updike considered this his signature collection, one that communicated his freshest impressions of life in Berks County, Pennsylvania, in the 1930s and ‘40s. This new edition of Olinger Stories, including the author’s original preface, restores a significant work to the Updike canon.