The poorhouse fair

By John Updike

Subjects: American fiction, Male authors, Almshouses, Psychological fiction, General, Middle class men, FICTION, Older people, Fiction, American fiction (fictional works by one author), Fairs, Fiction, psychological, Poor, Harry Angstrom (Fictitious character)

Description: "On the third Wednesday of every August the inhabitants of a mansion-turned-poorhouse in central New Jersey hold their annual fair; this novel describes a fair that occurs about twenty years from now [1958], when the United States itself is heading downhill ... While 'The Poorhouse Fair, ' insofar as it regrets the decline of patriotism, handcraft, and religion, carries a conservative message, its technique is unorthodox; without so much regard for fictional conventions, the author attempts to locate, in the ambiguous area between farce and melodrama, reality's own tone."