Couples

I’ll admit: I approached *Couples* expecting a salacious period piece, but what I got was far more unsettling—a novel that treats adultery like a symptom, not the disease. Ari Fliakos’s narration is the perfect vessel for Updike’s prose, which oscillates between lush description and surgical precision. His delivery is measured, almost clinical, which makes the rare moments of emotional rupture (like Piet’s drunken monologues or the infamous ‘tar baby’ scene) land like gut punches. The pacing mirrors the novel’s structure: long, meandering stretches of domestic detail that suddenly coalesce into something devastating. It’s not a *fast* listen, but it’s a *deep* one. That said, this audiobook isn’t without flaws. Fliakos’s character voices occasionally blur together—Updike’s ensemble cast is vast, and the narration doesn’t always distinguish between, say, the waspy detachment of Foxy and the simmering resentment of Angela. And while the production quality is crisp, the lack of musical cues or ambient sound (even subtle ones) sometimes makes the 18-hour runtime feel like a marathon of internal monologues. Still, these are quibbles. The real test is whether you can stomach Updike’s unromantic view of love, where even the most passionate affairs are just ‘a way of killing time until time kills you.’ If you can, Fliakos’s performance will haunt you long after the last chapter.