Rabbit, Run (1960) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Summary edit see section history

Characters/People edit see section history

• Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom: The flawed, shades-of-gray central character of arguably Updike's masterpiece series. Embodies the essence of the modern everyman.
• Janice Angstrom: Harry's wife
• Ruth Leonard: Harry's girlfriend
• Reverend Jack Eccles: He tries to help Rabbit get his act together and ultimately gets him to return to his wife Janice.
• Tothero: Harry's high-school basketball coach
• Nelson Angstrom: Harry and Janice's 2 1/2 year old son
• Rebecca June Angstrom: Harry and Janice's newborn baby
• Lucy Eccles: Jack's wife; recognizes Rabbit for the black hole he is and tries to convince Jack that Rabbit is incapable of ever changing.
• Mr. Springer: The father of Janice Angstrom; owns several car dealership, pays for the Angstrom's apartment, lives in an expensive house, gives Rabbit a job.
• Mrs Springer: Janice's mother; hates Rabbit.
• Mrs. Smith: Gives Rabbit a job as a gardener.
• Marty Tothero: Rabbit's former basketball coach who remembers him fondly for the star he was.
• Miriam Angstom: Rabbit's sister.
• Ronnie Harrison: A former team mate of Rabbit's from his basketball days.
• Margaret Kosko: A friend of Ruth Leonard; rejects Rabbit.
• Fritz Kruppenbach: Lutheran minister at Mt. Judge.
• Mr. Angstom: Rabbit's father who is crushed by Rabbit's refusal to join the printing press business.
• Mrs. Angstrom: Rabbit's mother, whose opinion he values.

Quotes edit see section history

• “Everybody who tells you how to act has whiskey on their breath.”

  Rabbit

• “Anger turns his skin rotten, so the outside seeps through; his insides go jagged with the tiny dry forks of bitter scratching brambles, where words hang like caterpillar nests that can't be burned away.”

• “You're a coward. You don't care about right or wrong; you worship nothing except your own worst instincts.”

  Eccles

• “That was the thing about him, he just lived in his skin and didn't give a thought to the consequences of anything.”

  Ruth

• “Janice: 'Why can't you try to imagine how I feel? I just had a baby.' Rabbit: 'I can. I can but I don't want to, it's not the thing, the thing is how I feel. And I feel like getting out.'”

  Janice and Rabbit

• “Right and wrong aren't dropped from the sky. We. We make them. Against misery. Invariably, Harry, invariably... misery follows their disobedience.”

  Tothero

• “Why don't you look outside your own pretty skin once in a while?”

  Ruth, to Rabbit

• “Saying all this unsteadies her and makes her cry, but she pretends she's not. She grips the back of the chair, the sides of her nose shining, and looks at him to say something. The way she's fighting for control of herself repels him; he doesn't like people who manage things. He likes things to happen of themselves. He has nervously felt her watching him for some sign of resolution inspired by her speech. In fact he has hardly listened; it is too complicated and, compared to the vision of a sandwich, unreal.”

  Ruth and Rabbit

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• “If you have the guts to be yourself,” he says, “other people’ll pay your price.”

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• “The only way to get somewhere, you know, is to figure out where you’re going before you go there.”

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• There is this quality, in things, of the right way seeming wrong at first.

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• He feels the truth: the thing that has left his life has left irrevocably; no search would recover it. No flight would reach it. It was here, beneath the town, in these smells and these voices, forever behind him. The fullness ends when we give Nature her ransom, when we make children for her. Then she is through with us, and we become, first inside, and then outside, junk. Flower stalks.

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• That’s what you have, Harry: life. It’s a strange gift and I don’t know how we’re supposed to use it but I know it’s the only gift we get and it’s a good one.”

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• Funny, the world just can’t touch you once you follow your instincts.

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• Laws aren’t ghosts in this country, they walk around with the smell of earth on them.

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• “You don’t think there’s any answer to that but there is. I once did something right. I played first-rate basketball. I really did. And after you’re first-rate at something, no matter what, it kind of takes the kick out of being second-rate. And that little thing Janice and I had going, boy, it was really second-rate.”

  Highlighted by 24 Kindle customers

• He had thought, he had read, that from shore to shore all America was the same. He wonders, Is it just these people I’m outside or is it all America?

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• Figure out where you’re going before you go there: it misses the whole point and yet there is always the chance that, little as it says, it says it.

  Highlighted by 21 Kindle customers

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Brewster, PA: Harry's hometown.
• Texas
• Heaven
• Philadelphia
• West Virginia

First Sentence edit see section history

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• Redemption: Rabbit, Run deals with the idea of whether Rabbit will ever achieve redemption for his sins, and what that redemption would be.

Series & Lists edit see section history

Followed by Rabbit Redux.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. John Updike (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• National Book Award (Finalist, 1961: Nonfiction)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 813.54

Notes for Parents edit see section history

There is a lot of sexual language and sex scenes in this book.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Authors, A-Z › ( U ) › Updike, John
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Genre Fiction › Family Saga
• Books › Mystery & Thrillers › Thrillers › Psychological & Suspense
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary