Rabbit, Run Audiobook By John Updike cover art

Rabbit, Run

 Preview
Get this deal Try for $0.00
Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm PT.
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just $0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 audiobook per month of your choice from our unparalleled catalog.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at $14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Rabbit, Run

By: John Updike
Narrated by: Arthur Morey
Get this deal Try for $0.00

$14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime. Offers ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm PT.

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $20.25

Buy for $20.25

LIMITED TIME OFFER. Get 3 months for $0.99 a month. Get this deal.

Rabbit, Run is the book that established John Updike as one of the major American novelists of his - or any other - generation. Its hero is Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, a onetime high-school basketball star who on an impulse deserts his wife and son. He is 26 years old, a man-child caught in a struggle between instinct and thought, self and society, sexual gratification and family duty - even, in a sense, human hard-heartedness, and divine Grace. Though his flight from home traces a zigzag of evasion, he holds to the faith that he is on the right path, an invisible line toward his own salvation as straight as a ruler’s edge.

©1996 John Updike (P)2008 Random House Audio Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Metaphysical & Visionary Psychological
adbl_web_adaptive_pdp_alc_button_t1

Critic reviews

"Brilliant and poignant...By his compassion, clarity of insight and crystal-bright prose, he makes Rabbit's sorrow his and our own." ( The Washington Post)

“A lacerating story of loss and of seeking, written in prose that is charged with emotion but is always held under impeccable control.” (Kansas City Star)
All stars
Most relevant
I like the story, despite it having the most unlikable main character I think I’ve ever read. The quality of the writing is quite good, classic John Updike, but the pace drags in parts. I would’ve liked the listening experience far more with a different narrator; this narrator reads dialogue with sort of a weird false cheeriness in every voice.

Strange story read by a strange narrator

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is always some of the best American writing. Updike is so smart, so beautiful and honest. I first read Rabbit nearly 30 years ago and so wonderful to meet Rabbit, Janice and Ruth again. They are familiar old friends.

The narration was beautifully balanced and sensitive.

Its Updike..

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is the first book in a series of four novels. While this isn't a favorite novel of mine, Updike does enough in this first installment to cause me to pick up Book 2 at some point in the future. Since this is the first book in a series, I would only recommend it to those who are interested in the series as a whole. It is a good listen, but not a great one. However, Updike won two Pultizer Prizes for his later works in this series, so maybe the next books improve on this already above average recording. The narrator is the perfect choice for a book like this.

Overall rating: 4.09

4.09 stars........Updike keeps it real

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I like the style of the writing. The story felt stringy, trashy. I wanted the run away, like Rabbit.
Disclaimer: I didn’t finish listening, so I have no right to criticize.

Frustrating

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Very well written and performed, but a mundane story about an uninteresting protagonist who is not likeable. Not sure why it is such a well liked and reviewed book.

Why is it a classic?

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A devastating, blistering, painful and brutal tragedy. A train wreck of a main character who blithely bruises and ruins the lives of those he touches as he stumbles like an oaf through adulthood no more aware of his impact than a blind bull. A cutting look at men, marriage and meaning --- pretty timeless in its tale and painful to listen to. Superb narration. An unforgettable book that haunts me long afterward. One of the best Audible listens. I could not stop listening and looked forward to this book like few others.

Wow

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A great novel in the American tradition of Twain, Hemingway, Salinger. That sounds really lofty, but Updike's character is cranky, funny and perceptive about the stupidities of society in just the same ineffable way as those writers' creations. Be prepared for a somewhat depressing story set in industrial PA in the early 60's.

Good reader, too.

Great, but gritty and depressing

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is a disturbing book at many levels. Speaks volumes of the shallowness of the American character developing in the 60's that has grown more prevalent today.

If you aren't troubled by this book, something is wrong with your listening skills. From the spoiling of children to the folly of 'church' to the false character building of sport and the insignificance of achievements, all here, all disturbing.

This is a brilliant work and should be on the same list as Catch-22. Brilliant.

And subtle. It won't club you over the head but you won't feel well at the end.

Disturbing

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I was very disappointed with this book. Having read each of the Rabbit novels over the years, I was looking forward to enjoying them all again. The book was great but the choice of reader was not. I could not even finish Rabbit Run. The voice whined on and on in such an irritating way and just did not fit the charactor of a young "big man on campus" type like Rabbit. I will avoid any future books using him as the reader.

Poor choice of reader

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Very tough book to handle. The descriptions are too rich and flowery. But there is much symbolism there. Such characters!!

Worth reading to the end!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews