A MONTH OF SUNDAYS by John Updike

 Finished Mo 6/23/25

This was one of my ancient paperbacks that I've never read. However, the cover of the book is covered in tape, so I cared enough to keep the cover presentable.

It's the story of a Protestant pastor who is placed in a retreat for sexual addiction. The novel is his experience at the facility and how he got there. He was married for twenty years to a woman who 'stood by her man'. He's having an affair with the church's organist who is also a 'sexually free spirit' and he would like to have his wife have an affair with the 'deacon' (?) or his 'second in command'. This guy is actually having an affair with his 'liberated' girlfriend. Soon he's having an affair with a rich woman in the congregation and also Ms. Prynne, at the facility. 

This novel is the first in a trilogy paying homage to Nathaniel Hawthorne's 'The Scarlet Letter'.  

A lot of the novel is 'stream of consciousness' and a little difficult to follow, but worth the effort. Also, there are references to Protestant philosophers that I was familiar with. Especially Karl Barth (1886- 1968) who is considered one of the most important Protestant thinkers of the 20th century. 

Some of the novel is brilliant, and other parts....not so much. 

From KIRKUS: "Purely and simply, or rather impurely and not so simply, this is the Updike man, whether in vestments or not, we have often met before — the lacerated Calvinist, here a Barthian (Barth after all is the most unobtainable — "opacity triumphant"), as divided as sin and salvation particularly when it comes to adultery which is our inherent and inevitable condition. Specifically the clergyman is Tom Marshfield, at the moment spending a month in "detention" for his "retraction" — writing "ad libidum" the annals of his fall in a fashion which is filled with a lush, explicit eroticism and sly punning that stretches from nave to navel and is so predictable in Updike. And also filled with "play and pain and display," otherwise known as self-love and self-loathing and self-indulgence, as Tom looks back on the first lapse with Alicia, his organist, distracting in her panty-hose and more so without them, then a second submission to one of his ministry, before he is besieged by his entire female flock and sent off in the desert. "What a paradox it is, dearly beloved, in a nation where every motel room unavailingly offers a Bible for the perusal of travel-worn salesmen, bickering vacationers, and headlong fornicators secluded with eager 'fornacatrices' that this passel of disgraced and distracted ministers should be uniquely denied the consolation and stimulation of this incredible, most credible book!" And what a bottomless cul de sac it is for Updike as well as for Tom — this prurient condition of man, no matter how married he's still left to burn, shriving and unshriven. A feat of sorts as well — although many readers will be uncomfortable in the hot seat that is his pew."