Source: The New Yorker

This short story by John Updike returned to my attention this past week, thanks to the Byliner, a marvelous experiment in online reading and publishing.

“The Full Glass,” like so much of Updike’s fiction, is a guy’s story—an old guy’s story, in this instance. “Approaching eighty, I sometimes see myself from a little distance, as a man I know but not intimately. Normally I have no use for introspection,” it begins. The unnamed narrator recollects his life and the scandalous romance that drove him from selling insurance to refinishing floors. The story has some real gems in it.  “People are more concerned about the floors they walk on than the loved ones they leave behind.”

Death and the pleasures of life are its ultimate subjects. A little over seven months after it was published, Updike died of cancer. He knew it was coming; this story shows it. But don’t get me wrong—this is a happy story.

You can read this story free of charge at the New Yorker.