Too Far to Go

The medium is rendered clearer still by the fact that the Maples’ experience is considered all by itself, in terms of Richard and Joan and their children.

[6] Literary critic Richard Detwieler considers the central theme of the volume “the dissolution of a marriage and the varieties of attendant suffering.”[7] Too Far To Go: The Maples Stories was adapted as two-hour television movie directed by Fielder Cook in 1979.

Entitled Too Far to Go the adaption starred Blythe Danner, Michael Moriarty, Kathryn Walker and Glenn Close.

[8] The linked stories focus upon the marriage and eventual divorce of Richard and Joan Maple and depict a 1960s New York City and New England milieu through the 1970s typical of much of Updike's fiction.

[9] Literary critic Richard Detweiler wirtes: "The television dramatization of Too Far To Go, produced in 1979 (with Blythe Danner and Michael Moriarty playing Joan and Richard Maple), was a popular and critical triumph which demonstrated how good television, at times, can be.