Nakedness

The Maples Stories consists ofeighteen classic stories from across John Updike’s career, forming a luminouschronicle of the life and times of one marriage in all its rich emotionalcomplexity. In 1956, Updike published the story “Snowing in Greenwich Village,”about a young couple, Joan and Richard Maple, at the beginning of theirmarriage. Over the next two decades, he returned to these characters again andagain, tracing their years together raising children, finding moments ofintermittent happiness, and facing the heartbreak of infidelity andestrangement.

In thethirteenth story, “Nakedness,” Joan and Richard encounter two errant youngnudists at the beach, an experience that exhumes memories of nudity and awakenstheir sense of their current physicality.