The Widows of Eastwick

This has been on my bookshelf for years and perhaps I should have just left it there. For two-thirds of the book, I couldn't see where the book is going. At times, it felt like a travelogue with its extensive descriptions of Canada, Egypt, and China. There's also something about Nature I didn't understand. The book made more sense later, or at least I found some reason for reading the book when the witches shared their fears of aging and sickness, and Alexandra found some family warmth. Minus the witchcraft, it's just about three lonely women.

After reading the Witches earlier this year, had to do the sequel too...it's 30+ years since the trio afflicted rival Jenny with terminal cancer, and rode off into the sunset, each with a new man.
But while Updike's books are full of sex and sin, he always introduces a note of "God will not be mocked" ...and here the three all find themselves widows, and, eventually, return to Eastwick for the summer.
There are sundry faces from the past; and the witches - no longer (quite) the playful minxes of yesteryear, but troubled with old lady complaints - find that their crimes still exact punishment.
Did it finish a tad up in the air? It was still a darn good read and John Updike remains unquestionably my favourite author.

Quick Take: An okay conclusion to The Witches of Eastwick. These widows are more whiny than witchy, though.


For all the malevolent adjectives John Updike uses to describe his widows (forsaken, wicked, wanton, etc.), I found them merely... old. Even Jane, the darkest witch, comes across as just another frustrated old bag: "There's only a splash of vermouth left! That cellist was a measure behind! The microwave oven scares me!"


Despite what the townspeople may remember, these witches aren't evil: they're sad and scared and lonely. Just like everybody else. By playing up their essential humanity, Updike crafts a reasonably engaging story of atonement and reflection, memory and redemption. This in spite of the widows' incessant complaining, show more which I found grating—I'll take evil over petulant any day.


Updike's greatest success is that his sequel doesn't ham-handedly rehash the original; nor does it leave an uninitiated reader feeling as though they've been left out of an inside joke. He strikes a fair balance between old and new, and there's a nice parallel between the original (divided into The Coven - Malifica - Guilt) and the successor (The Coven Reconstituted - Malifica Revisited - Guilt Assuaged). show less

I read Witches after ripping through the Rabbit Angstrom books at the age of 16 or so. Rabbit, Run was assigned reading in one of my high school classes. These books are so preoccupied with sexual liberation and power; about people choking on the yoke of gender roles. Did anybody else read them at that age? The Rabbit books shifted the ground under my feet. Maybe it’s better to read them before reaching marriage, kids and full-blown, irreversible adulthood. Or maybe not? Updike’s language is so ripe, so honestly horny (and yes: chauvinistic, misogynistic, etc.). Nothing much has changed twenty-odd years later except the preoccupation this time is with death rather than sex.

In their prime, fully in tune & blessed by Nature, the three young & sexually vibrant witches explored their powers freely. But not even these witches could halt the passage and effects of time.
With conjured-up husbands they went on with their post Daryl Van Horne lives. Time/fate/Nature brings them together after the deaths of their husbands. Alexandra, Jane & Sukie head off on world travels and sight seeing – to forget or to remember? They can’t forget the deeds of their past and Alexandra especially is pricked by remorse over the death of Jenny Gabriel.
Though they decide to “return to the scene of our primes”, the Eastwick that they return to is not the Eastwick that they left – people have died, aged and left, children show more have grown and the townsfolk memories of the witches’ vengeful deeds has not faded. Instead, the women’s connection with Nature has diminished with the passage of time and they are no longer able to unite to summon the magic that their younger, sexual selves did.
These witches are not the impulsive, imaginative & carelessly vengeful ladies that we knew and readers who were expecting more of that joie-de-vivre will be disappointed – not in the writing, Updike’s prose and story-telling draws the reader in and compels you to finish the journey, but in the characters. And the question is raised – can making amends make amends? show less

I read this because of the movie version of the WITCHES OF EASTWICK. At first I found it difficult to put the aging ladies together with what I remember of the movie. This book has made it to a few "must read" lists. Depsite that, I cannot rave about the story, because I felt the first third of the book read somewhat like a travelogue. However, I did enjoy the relationship between these three best friends some 30 years down the road, when they reunite and revisit Eastwick.

Throughout this book, Updike appears to be confronting his own mortality. It is, in fact, more than anything else, a meditation on aging and the ending of life and it is interesting that Updike chose to revisit his "witches" and provide readers with a woman's perspective of this poignant, and sometimes bitter, closure.

As the book opens, all three of the witches have become widows. They are alone, each one uniquely confronting the fear and solitude of life's closing. During the early part of the book, they travel together, becoming reacquainted with one another. Updike's commentary on the frustrations and disappointments often associated with travel are sometimes entertaining but, frankly, often seem irrelevant. Ultimately, the witches show more return to Eastwick and find it, like all else in life, changed in a way that leaves them isolated, out of touch and largely ignored. Updike's writing is so very fine that it is easy to lose sight of the fact that this is far from his best work. Even so, it is, in my opinion, worth reading. He was a remarkable writer. show less