Henry Bech is a Jewish American writer in his early forties, struggling for fame, no Norman Mailer, or Philip Roth, or Saul Bellow, he. We see him on his travels to Russia, to Bulgaria, and in the beds of his various mistresses. This is a funny, witty book about the world of writers and the quest for success.

Henry Bech, first heard from in Bech: A Book, is back. Famous for his writer's block, a Jew adrift in a world of gentiles, the renowned author is now fifty years old. Here he reflects on his fam, roams the world, marries an Episcopalian divorcee from Westchester and—surprise to all—writes a book that becomes a smash bestseller.

In this, the final volume in John Updike’s mock-heroic trilogy about the Jewish American writer Henry Bech, our hero is older but scarcely wiser. Now in his seventies, he remains competitive, lecherous, and self-absorbed, lost in a brave new literary world where his books are hyped by Swiss-owned conglomerates, showcased in chain stores attached to espresso bars, and returned to warehouses three weeks after publication. In five chapters more startling and surreal than any that have come before, Bech presides over the American literary scene, enacts bloody revenge on his critics, and wins the world’s most coveted writing prize. It’s not easy being Henry Bech in the post-Gutenbergian world, but somebody has to do it, and he brings to the task his signature mixture of grit, spit, and ennui.

This is a reprint of Updike's article by the same name in The New Yorker in 1998. Bech first appeared in Updike's works in 1964 in a short story called "The Bulgarian Poetess" His life was famously continued in three Updike novels in 1970, 1982 and 1998. This subsequent short story finds Bech as an old man, remembering the women of his life.