I avoided reading John Updike for years but I like his work so much I'm sorry I did. On the other hand, there's still plenty left for me to read. This is a four-generation family saga, not my favorite genre, but in this case it is. Updike did a ton of research to make the times and what happened in them (it begins in 1910 and ends in 1989) authentic but it's not bogged down because of it. The research enhances his own powerful observations.