Author John Updike has died at age 76. (Of lung cancer, in a hospice in Massachusetts.)
Obituary lede writers agree: Updike was all about the chronicles.
“John Updike, the great chronicler of middle-class America…” –The Financial Times
“John Updike, the Pulitzer prize-winning author and revered chronicler of small-town American life…” –The Daily Telegraph
“John Updike, the prolific writer who was… a chronicler of the loves and losses of small-town America…” –The Guardian
“John Updike… a prolific chronicler of American suburban mores, manners and misbehaviour…” –The Independent
“John Updike, the chronicler of American suburban adultery…” –The Times of London
“John Updike… who chronicled the drama of small-town American life with flowing and vivid prose, wit and a frank eye for sex…” –Reuters
“Prolific Pulitzer Prize-winning US novelist John Updike, whose books and short stories chronicled small-town American life…” –Agence France-Presse
“John Updike, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, prolific man of letters and erudite chronicler of sex, divorce and other adventures in the postwar prime of the American empire…” –The Associated Press