Henry Bech
Encyclopedia
Henry Bech is a fictional character created by American author John Updike
. Bech first appeared in assorted short stories, stories which were later compiled in the books Bech: A Book (1970), Bech Is Back (1982), and Bech at Bay (1998). These books were all later collected in The Complete Henry Bech (2001), which also included the short story His Oeuvre (2000).
Updike's Bech is considered an antihero, and Updike's alter-ego. While Updike generally concerns himself with WASP
culture, is married, and is famously prolific, Bech is apathetically Jewish, a bachelor (later a husband and stepfather for a time, and finally a father in old age), and famously unprolific. In the introduction to his first collection, the eponymous author
speculates he is modeled in part after many other famous writers, including Norman Mailer
, Bernard Malamud
, J.D. Salinger and, of course, Updike himself.
John Updike
John Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic....
. Bech first appeared in assorted short stories, stories which were later compiled in the books Bech: A Book (1970), Bech Is Back (1982), and Bech at Bay (1998). These books were all later collected in The Complete Henry Bech (2001), which also included the short story His Oeuvre (2000).
Updike's Bech is considered an antihero, and Updike's alter-ego. While Updike generally concerns himself with WASP
White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
White Anglo-Saxon Protestant or WASP is an informal term, often derogatory or disparaging, for a closed group of high-status Americans mostly of British Protestant ancestry. The group supposedly wields disproportionate financial and social power. When it appears in writing, it is usually used to...
culture, is married, and is famously prolific, Bech is apathetically Jewish, a bachelor (later a husband and stepfather for a time, and finally a father in old age), and famously unprolific. In the introduction to his first collection, the eponymous author
Eponymous author
The eponymous author of a literary work, often a work that is meant to be prophetic or homiletic, is not really the author. An anonymous author chooses to write in the name of another. This eponymous author is not merely a pen name for the real author, but someone with a completely different identity...
speculates he is modeled in part after many other famous writers, including Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer
Norman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...
, Bernard Malamud
Bernard Malamud
Bernard Malamud was an author of novels and short stories. Along with Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, he was one of the great American Jewish authors of the 20th century. His baseball novel, The Natural, was adapted into a 1984 film starring Robert Redford...
, J.D. Salinger and, of course, Updike himself.