The terrorist that lies within

BOSTON — Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Updike’s next project is bound to stir controversy -- not just in literary circles.

Titled “Terrorist,” the novel confronts the emotional issue of changes in America after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks with a culturally charged twist: Updike’s terrorist is a U.S. teenager given a sympathetic treatment.

The threat is not anonymous, foreign-born or groomed overseas by Osama bin Laden. He is an 18-year-old American-born son of an Irish mother and Egyptian father who finds Islam at a small urban American high school.

“It’s my attempt, in a way, to cope with today’s world,” Updike said, referring to the novel that he expects to be published in June.

“Terrorism is one of our themes that has changed the texture of American life in a noticeable way. And, of course, it makes you fearful because you think, ‘Well, I’m not a terrorist but somebody could be.’ ”

At one point, Updike considered another title, “Land of Fear.” But that title had already been taken and “Terrorist” was more arresting, he said. Some scenes are set in Washington, D.C., with a fictional Cabinet, but Updike is careful not to give away the plot.

“I thought my take on it would be different from anybody else’s -- trying to understand it from the terrorist’s point of view and make him a sympathetic character,” he said.

The novel is the latest work by one of America’s most prolific authors who, at age 73, says his view of himself as a writer has changed as he produces an increasing volume of art and literary criticism and struggles with the short-story medium.

“Still Looking,” his latest book of essays published this year, traces a history of American artists from the 18th to the 20th century and forms a sequel to a 1989 collection of art criticism, “Just Looking.”

When asked which genre he prefers as a writer -- short stories, novels, poetry or criticism -- he pauses.

“If I had been asked that 10 years ago I would have said short stories is where I feel most at home. I’m not sure I do feel totally at home any more.... I have maybe written all my short stories,” he said.

“I’ve published a couple hundred, and I don’t know how many more you can expect. The ideas come to me more rarely.”

A Massachusetts resident, Updike is known for exploring themes of sexual tension, and spiritual and moral angst, in small-town settings. His “Rabbit Is Rich,” published in 1981, won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. A decade later, his “Rabbit at Rest” also received a Pulitzer Prize.

For many readers, he is perhaps best known as a seemingly endless source of short stories in the New Yorker magazine.

“In a short story, as short a form as it is, you’ve got to make everything count toward a certain effect at the end. That’s maybe a muscular feat that I’ve lost muscle to perform,” he said. “But anyway, I’m still trying.

“I’ve become much more of a book reviewer and an art reviewer for that matter than I ever planned to. At least there is a comfort when you sit down to write one of these that you’ll be sure that it will get printed and you’ll get paid for it. It’s not the case with a short story.”

The climate for writing had changed too, he said. It now mirrors the conservatism of the American political climate and reflects a dwindling number of magazines willing to publish fiction and pay for it, he added.

Comic strips were also exerting greater influence and could replace the religious imagery that once dominated literature, while contemporary fiction itself, he said, veered toward greater realism. “Now people want to believe that this is just what happens, how it feels and how it looks. The fiction writer has less freedom to invent,” he said.