The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike

The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike

Toward the end of the Vietnam era, in a snug little Rhode Island seacoast town, wonderful powers have descended upon Alexandra, Jane, and Sukie, bewitching divorcees with sudden access to all that is female, fecund, and mysterious. Alexandra, a sculptor, summons thunderstorms; Jane, a cellist, floats on the air; and Sukie, the local gossip columnist, turns milk into cream. Their happy little coven takes on new, malignant life when a dark and moneyed stranger, Darryl Van Horne, refurbishes the long-derelict Lenox mansion and invites them in to play. Thenceforth scandal flits through the darkening, crooked streets of Eastwick--and through the even darker fantasies of the town's collective psyche.

In 1954, John Updike graduated from Harvard College and spent a year at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art in Oxford, England. He was a member of The New Yorker's staff from 1955 until 1957. He has won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for his works. Updike earned the Rea Prize for Short Fiction in 2006, and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for his Early Tales (1953-1975). In January 2009, he passed away.