Are you beginning to see why maybe this was touchy? Rabbit, Run was also what some consider a “biting critique” of America in 1959. Rabbit, Run also has lots of conversations between people arguing about different Christian philosophies, a main character with a bit of a Jesus Complex, a couple of atheists, and even a Freudian. Its 26-year old protagonist Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom even leers at 14-year old girls (though only to make his girlfriend jealous).
Why was it banned? Isn’t it set in 1959, like Leave it Beaver time? Yes, that’s true, but Rabbit, Run touches on some delicate issues, like prostitution, male and female orgasms, alcoholism, adultery, blow jobs, homosexuality (though only briefly and ambiguously), birth control, abortion, and even accidental infanticide (We realize the phrase is a contradiction in terms, but we promise it’ll make sense when you get into the novel). And the novel is also listed by the American Library Association as one of the 100 most frequently banned books in the 20th century. In 2006, The Rabbit series was voted number four on The New York Times list of “the best work of American fiction of the past 25 years.” Rabbit, Run was also selected by Time magazine as one of the top 100 books from 1923-2005. But, the series actually continued after Rabbit’s death in Updike’s 2001 novella, Rabbit Remembered.
He says these novels became “a running report on the state of my hero and his nation.” He won the Pulitzer Prize for the “final” two books. He wrote three more Rabbit novels, one at the end of the '60s, '70s, and '80s. Rabbit, Run was published in 1960 by American author John Updike.
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