Rabbit Redux

It is 1969 and times are changing. America is about to put the first man on the Moon, the Vietnam War is at its peak, and racial tension is rising. Life is not as simple as it used to be, at least not for "Rabbit" Engstrom. His wife has left him, leaving him with their teenage son, he risks being fired from his job, and his mother is dying. Suddenly, part of his tangled life becomes Jill, a runaway eighteen-year-old who starts living with him in his house and becomes his lover. But when she invites her friend to live with them, a young and radical Black man named Skeeter, the fragile harmony of the couple is irreversibly broken. "Rabbit Redux" is the second of John Updike's four novels focused on the central character, Harry "Rabbit" Engstrom. By recounting how Rabbit resolves or further complicates his problems, Updike creates a novel of first-rate importance.