Still-Life by John Updike, 1959
The magic trick:
Earning the reader’s trust with layers of believable details
You have to believe what the author is telling you. Nothing else about a short story matters.
Updike earns the reader’s belief here with details.
Consider this small example:
Leonard, our protagonist, is being mentored by a Mr. Seabright, who we’re told pronounced violet as “vaalet.”
It’s not essential to the story, per se, but it’s just the kind of detail that is essential to bringing the story to life and making us believe in the story’s universe.
And that’s quite a trick on Updike’s part.
The selection:
“Seriously my foot. You Americans are never serious. Everything you say’s a variety of joke; honestly, it’s like conversing in a monkey house.”
On this severe note Leonard feared they had concluded; but a minute later she showed him his silence was too careful by lucidly announcing, “I have a friend who’s an atheist and hopes World War Three blows everything to bits. He doesn’t care. He’s an atheist.”
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