In The New York Times, critic Michiko Kakutani called the work “dazzling ... a book that forces us to reassess the American Dream.”[1] Beginning in 1910 and ending in 1990, the novel covers four generations of the Wilmot family, tying its fortunes to both the decline of the Christian faith and the rise of Hollywood in twentieth century America.

"[2] The first section, set mainly in Paterson, New Jersey, is centered on Clarence Wilmot, a minister in his forties who abruptly loses his faith one very hot afternoon shortly before a dinner party.

He gradually becomes involved with an equally shy young woman called Emily with a stunted and deformed foot whose family is socially looked down on, possibly because it is rumored her mother is part black.

(The film stars of the 1920s are frequently mentioned, but unlike his father, Ted takes little pleasure in movies, finding them exhausting and intrusive).

His mother and Aunt Esther (Clarence's sister), disappointed with Ted's choice of Emily as a girlfriend and his general lack of ambition, sends him to stay with his older brother Jared in New York City.

He decides to return home and marry Emily; his mother and aunt resign themselves to Ted's choice of a bride and find him a job as a postman which he works at contentedly for decades.

Esther finds work modeling and gradually begins appearing in films, typically as a spunky girl next door similar to Judy Garland.

The final section focuses on Clark and jumps ahead to the late 1980s when he is an aimless young man halfheartedly working as a ski lift operator for his great uncle Jared in Colorado.

An attempt “to chart the fortunes of an American family through four generations and some 80 years, and in doing so, create a portrait of the country, from its nervous entry into the 20th century to its stumbling approach to the millennium,” writes Kakutani in her assessment.

“‘In the Beauty of the Lilies’ is not only Mr. Updike's most ambitious novel to date, but arguably his finest: a big, generous book, narrated with Godlike omniscience and authority and populated by a wonderfully vivid cast of dreamers, wimps, social climbers, crackpots and lost souls, a book that forces us to reassess the American Dream and the crucial role that faith (and the longing for faith) has played in shaping the national soul.”[3] Critic James Wood called it a "complacent historical saga".