A&P, Updike #8

A&P by John Updike
From the New Yorker Fiction Podcast
#8  in the I will read and take brief notes on 300 short stories series

When I realized that the reader, Allegra Goodman, chose Updike's serially anthologized story, one I've read in at least two and probably more English classes, I was surprised at the conventionality. But I listened anyway and it was a treat to hear the narrator's angsty and appreciative prose as he tells the story of girls who dare to come to the grocery store in their bathing suits. Sammy is inexperienced and arrogant; a common combination. His probably temporary rejection of the mores of the time, must, as Goodman said in her interview, have seemed very fresh.