John Updike, the prolific novelist and essayist who twice won the Pulitzer Prize, died Tuesday at age 76.
In October 2008, Updike joined Neal Conan on Talk of the Nation to talk about his latest novel, The Widows of Eastwick.
Writing about "ordinary life," Updike told Conan, is a big problem for fiction writers; everyday lives do not involve heroism or extraordinary crises.
"But the way in which we are alive is meaningful," Updike says, "and it does have a certain radiance — the beauty of the actual. That's what I keep pushing at."
Guest host Lynn Neary remembers Updike, and shares portions of his October 2008 interview.
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