Bring tissues. And maybe don’t read it right before bed.
Absolutely. It’s short (only about 15 pages), available online and in The Early Stories: 1953-1975 , and it will change how you think about the quiet catastrophes happening behind the closed doors of your own neighborhood. separating by john updike
If you’ve ever experienced a family fracturing, this story will land like a stone in your chest. If you haven’t, it will give you the closest thing to the real feeling—without the legal bills. Bring tissues
John Updike, the Pulitzer Prize-winning chronicler of American middle-class life, had a unique gift for finding profound drama in quiet, domestic moments. Perhaps no story exemplifies this better than “Separating,” a sharp, heartbreaking, and darkly comic tale from his 1975 collection, Problems and Other Stories . It’s short (only about 15 pages), available online
He was not past it. And neither are we. “Separating” isn’t just a story about divorce. It’s about the limits of language, the failure of adult rationality, and the way love and damage can coexist in the same house. Updike refuses to judge Richard or Joan. Instead, he asks us to sit with the uncomfortable truth that sometimes, doing the “right” thing (ending a dead marriage) still feels like a terrible wrong to the people you love most.
While “Separating” features Richard and Joan Maple—the same couple from his earlier classic “The Happiest I’ve Been”—you don’t need to know the backstory. This story stands entirely on its own as a masterclass in how to write about the end of a marriage. The plot is deceptively simple: Richard and Joan Maple have decided to divorce after decades of marriage. The story takes place over a single weekend as they face the most agonizing part of the process: telling their four children .