All he does is write his novel
Christian Lorentzen: Updike, 5 June 2014
“... himself among the sons of the East Coast establishment, from William Burroughs of St Louis to Norman Mailer, the Brooklyn Jew. The Lampoon officers recognised the worker in the ‘cultural bumpkin’: he could put out the magazine single-handed while everyone else was horsing around and drinking, a vice Updike hardly ever indulged in to excess. (He was a ... ”