Ben Turnbull the hero of John Updikes eighteenth novel is a sixtysixyearold retired investment counselor living north of Boston in the year 2020. Arecent war be... » 

Ben Turnbull the hero of John Updikes eighteenth novel is a sixtysixyearold retired investment counselor living north of Boston in the year 2020. Arecent war between the United States and China has thinned the population andbrought social chaos. The dollar has been locally replaced by Massachusettsscrip instead of taxes one pays protection money to competing racketeers.Nevertheless Bens life traced by his journal entries over the course of ayear retains many of its accustomed comforts as supervised by his vibrantwife Gloria. He plays golf he pays visits to his five children and tengrandchildren. Something of a science buff he finds his personal historycaught up in the disjunctions and vagaries of the manyworlds hypothesisderived from the indeterminacy of quantum theory. His identity branches intovariants extending back through history and ahead in the evolution of theuniverse as both it and his own mortal natureenshrouded existence movetoward the end of time. «