Volume 31, Number 10 · June 14, 1984
Warlock
By Diane Johnson
The Witches of Eastwick
by John Updike
Knopf, 307 pp., $15.95
Writers are always drawn to witches. It's witchery they themselves aspire to, seeking for their own words the powers of spells. Other people fear witches and occasionally burn them, as they occasionally burn books and even authors. One senses in the tone of John Updike's new novel about modern witches both the writer, who gets behind his creations most of the time, and the private citizen, who fears and dislikes them, but he negotiates out of the paradox a witty novel of manners, in this case the manners of America during the Vietnam era and of a small New England town, which seems, as Updike's towns usually do, more full of hanky-panky than our town.
Review, 2145 words
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