Henry Bech is a fictional character created by American author

John Updike John Hoyer Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009) was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once (the others being Booth Tar ...

. Bech first appeared in assorted short stories, stories which were later compiled in the books ''Bech: A Book'' (1970), ''Bech Is Back'' (1982), and ''Bech at Bay'' (1998). These books were all later collected in ''The Complete Henry Bech'' (2001),"John Updike: 1932-2009," ''San Francisco Chronicle'' online
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/ref> which also included the short story ''His Oeuvre'' (2000). Updike's Bech is considered an antihero, and Updike's alter-ego. While Updike generally concerns himself with

WASP A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder ...

culture, is married, and is prolific, Bech is apathetically Jewish, a bachelor (later a husband and stepfather for a time, and finally a father in old age), and unprolific. In the introduction to his first collection, the eponymous author speculates he is modeled in part after many other famous writers, including

Norman Mailer Nachem Malech Mailer (January 31, 1923 – November 10, 2007), known by his pen name Norman Kingsley Mailer, was an American writer, journalist and filmmaker. In a career spanning more than six decades, Mailer had 11 best-selling books, at least ...

, Bernard Malamud, J.D. Salinger and Updike himself.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bech, Henry Fictional writers