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 ...

. 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 An antihero (sometimes spelled as anti-hero) or antiheroine is a main character in a story who may lack conventional heroic qualities and attributes, such as idealism, courage, and morality. Although antiheroes may sometimes perform actions ...

, 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. Th ...

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 An eponym is a person, a place, or a thing after whom or which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. The adjectives which are derived from the word eponym include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''. Usage of the word The term ''epon ...

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 novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, activist, filmmaker and actor. In a career spanning over six decades, Mailer ...

Bernard Malamud Bernard Malamud (April 26, 1914 – March 18, 1986) was an American novelist and short story writer. Along with Saul Bellow, Joseph Heller, and Philip Roth, he was one of the best known American Jewish authors of the 20th century. His baseba ...

J.D. Salinger Jerome David Salinger (; January 1, 1919 January 27, 2010) was an American author best known for his 1951 novel ''The Catcher in the Rye''. Salinger got his start in 1940, before serving in World War II, by publishing several short stories in ''S ...

and Updike himself.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bech, Henry Fictional writers