"I feel so used...so unsatisfied"

Published in 1968, John Updike’s brilliant novel, Couples, was no doubt a shock to a country that was doing its best to keep sexual taboos under the table as much as possible, especially with the “swinging ‘60s” hitting their full stride. Updike’s brutally honest, sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking look at the sexual behaviour of a small town – that really could be Anytown, U.S.A. – spent nine months on the New York Times Bestseller List (a number that couldn’t be more fitting) and caused an uproar in the country.
The novel’s focus is on Piet Hanema, a thirty-something living with his wife and two daughters in the east-coast town of Tarbox. The pair is a part of a group of about a half-dozen couples who get together on a regular basis – being the town’s upper-class – and have their own little club running. Updike then takes the reader underneath the surface of theses facades, where the gossip about who is sleeping with who turns out to be true, more often than not, and where couples trade partners like square dancers.
The explicit descriptions of sex is probably what caused such criticism of the book, but never before – and rarely since – has a novel tackled American sexuality in such an honest way. Every base gets covered, from marital to extramarital sex, from sodomy to masturbation, and childbirth and abortion. Almost anything that sex touches on, so does the novel. It’s not all pretty – nor is it meant to be – but it’s honest, and is always the case with Updike, honesty – no matter how ugly – is of the utmost importance.
Fans of Updike’s famous “Rabbit” series will see a lot of Robert Angstrom in Piet Hanema, but the characters that he populates Tarbox with are both unique and familiar at the same time. In true Updike fashion, the action is all personal, with no big blowouts – on the external level – but instead quiet loss and desperation.
For a study of American sexuality – in fiction form, mind you – you’re not going to get a better window into the American viewpoint than Couples. It may make you feel a bit soiled at the end, but hell if that’s not the point.