Eastwick Books in Order

The Eastwick books take one of Updike's favorite subjects, small-town social pressure, and tip it into comic fantasy. At the center are three divorced women in the Rhode Island town of Eastwick: Alexandra Spofford, Jane Smart, and Sukie Rougemont. Each has her own temperament, work, and romantic history, but together they form the emotional core of the series. Their talk, their grievances, and their half-discovered powers give the books their charge.

Then Darryl Van Horne arrives.

In The Witches of Eastwick, his arrival turns gossip into something darker and stranger. The women are already restless, sexually alive, and out of place in a town that likes its rules clear. Darryl, flashy, rich, and possibly demonic, gives their desires a focus and their powers a stage. What follows is funny, biting, sensual, and at times genuinely unsettling. Updike uses witchcraft here less as a system of fantasy rules than as a way of talking about female power, envy, appetite, and what a small community does to women who refuse to stay manageable.

The setting matters almost as much as the supernatural element. Eastwick is full of neighbors, rumors, old resentments, and watchful eyes. The books understand that local life can feel both cozy and claustrophobic. That tension keeps the magic grounded. Even when strange things happen, the social stakes remain clear: who is desired, who is mocked, who is left out, who gets punished.

The Widows of Eastwick returns to Alexandra, Jane, and Sukie decades later. They are older now, and time has thinned some of the old glamour and sharpened some of the old memories. The second book is less about the wildness of discovery and more about what remains after marriages, affairs, motherhood, and grief have had their say. It keeps the series' wit, but there is more autumn in it.

If you only know Eastwick from the 1987 film adaptation, the books may feel stranger, sharper, and more interested in the town itself. Updike is having fun, but he is also paying attention to aging, rivalry, and the cost of getting what you once thought you wanted.

So what should you expect overall? A mix of satire, fantasy, suburbia, and dark comedy, carried by three memorable women who refuse to shrink back into ordinary roles. The Eastwick books are among the most playful things Updike wrote, but the playfulness has teeth.