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.