Too Far to Go is a series of short stories, spanning over 22 years. It details a sense of immediacy, concerning one couple. One notes the male sexual peak at the age of 18. At 27, he is married to his sweetheart, but is stuck in a dead-end job. Life has no excitement after that, becoming futile and useless. Incidentally, the book Couples is probably Updike's most notorious book, which explores passion and fidelity in a group of young married couples.
Better known to younger readers are the many Updike short stories. In "Walter Briggs," the reader witnesses a mundane family drive home from a party. The mother is in the backseat with the child as the story begins, and the couple has been married for five years. There is a shift, where the mother leans forward to talk to her husband, and becomes a wife again. (The baby is referred to as "the weight" on her lap.) The couple play a game of "Who's Best," trying to remember the names of people they saw at the party, and Updike describes this as "whiling away forced time together." It's clear the honeywoon is over, especially once we find there's a problem with Jack's excitement.
Jack remembers their first three months of marriage, spent at a YMCA camp, when love was young and exciting. He has fond memories of New Hampshire in the woods, on an island. The couple had been isolated in a cabin, using only candlelight, reminiscent of the Don Quixote representation of romance. During the drive, Jack tries to take a longer way home, prolonging the couple's enforced time together, but once they get home, she falls asleep immediately. The last two words of this story can therefore take on a double meaning: "I remember" the name; the romance. Details are the thrust of an Updike story.
