> I was hired as an assassin. You don’t bring in a 37-year-old woman to review John Updike in the year of our Lord 2019 unless you’re hoping to see blood on the ceiling.
I'm hooked already.
Florence King was briefer in the essay "Phallus in Wonderland": "Updike's style is an exquisite blend of Melville and Austen: reading him is like cutting through whale blubber with embroidery scissors." (Poorhouse Fair) Or "Having read detailed descriptions of approximately six bushels of pubic hair, nameless forces drove me to go seeking and questing through my kitchen drawer to gather up all the Twisties I've saved and arrange them by color."