John Updike was a prolific writer, publishing over twenty-five novels and fifteen short story collections. Many of his short stories were first published in The New Yorker magazine.
His Rabbit tetralogy, including the novels Rabbit, Run (1960), Rabbit Redux (1971), Rabbit is Rich (1981), and Rabbit at Rest (1990), follows the life of an aging high school basketball star similar to Ace Anderson in "Ace in the Hole."
Updike wrote in the realist tradition and has been compared to novelists John Cheever, Norman Mailer, and Martin Amis.