John Updike's new novel is set in a New Jersey mill town that has fallen on hard times. Once home to energetic, white immigrants from Eastern Europe, this city, New Prospect, has decayed to the point where "those who occupy the inner city now are brown, by and large, in its many shades." Brown-ness and its discontents are central to the novel, and Updike is acutely aware of the many tints and gradations of this color.