●The dozen short stories in John Updike's new collection revisit many of the locales of his fiction: the small Pennsylvania town of Olinger, the lonely farm to which the hero moves as an adolescent, the New England of adulthood, the New York City of art and glamour. Love exerts its spell in all twelve; the title derives from a story in which an American banjo virtuoso demonstrates his licks to an enthralled Soviet audience in the heart of the Cold War, while being hounded by the aftermath of a one-night stand in Washington, D.C.
To these tales Mr. Updike has added a novella-length sequel to his quartet of novels about Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom. Old strands come together at last, and the dead man's survivors fitfully entertain his memory while pursuing their own happiness over the edge of the millennium.