Book Reviews
The narator of The Coup is Colonel Ellellou, dictator of Kush, and this may be the first mistake. It isnecessary for Mr. Updike to disarticulate himself, to renounce his redoubtable sytle, in order to let the colonel speak. As is often the case in such conceptions, the author splits the difference. Sometimes the colonel sounds like Mr. Updike and sometimes he sounds like nothing in this world. His habit of speaking in the first and the third person, often on the same page, is not one of the author's happier innovations.... Mr. Updike is swamped by distractions.
Anatole Broyard - New York Times
[The Coup] views with ... humor current African tensions between tradition and modernity. Updike's American-educated Marxist dictator of a small Sahelian satrapy sounds remarkably like the author himself at his best and worst—and his four wives embody, variously, the earthy virtues and ornery independence of vintage Updike women.... The resulting depiction of cultural mésalliance is a comic delight.
Jennifer Seymour Whitaker, Foreign Affairs
Updike is one of the most exquisite masters of prose style produced by 20th century America. Yet, his novels have been faulted for lacking any sense of action or character development. It appears at times that his ability to spin lovely phrases of delicate beauty and nuance overwhelm his desire to tell a simple, important story in the lives of his characters. Updike's novels raise the question of whether beauty of expression, the lyrical telling of a captured moment of human time is, itself, enough to justify a great work of art.
In contrast, his short stories are seen by many as masterful in every respect, both for their prose style that approaches poetic expression and for the stories they convey. Some critics believe that had Updike produced only short stories and poems, his role in American letters would be even more celebrated. But it is Updike's novels that have brought him the greatest fame and attention and which resulted in his appearance on the covers of Time magazine two times during his career.
Wikipedia