约翰•厄普代克（John Updike，1932.3.18—2009.1.27），集小说家、诗人、剧作家、散文家和评论家于一身的美国当代文学大师，作品两获普利策奖和国家图书奖，获得欧•亨利奖等其他众多奖项多达十数次。“性爱、宗教和艺术”是厄普代克毕生追求的创作标的，“美国人、基督徒、小城镇和中产阶级”则是厄普代克独擅胜场的创作主题，他由此成为当之无愧的美国当代中产阶级的灵魂画师，被誉为“美国的巴尔扎克”。

BEFORE THEY WERE THE WIDOWS OF EASTWICK, OUR HEROINES WERE A TRIO OF DELIGHTFULLY WICKED WITCHES.

In a small New England town in that hectic era when the sixties turned into the seventies, there lived three witches. Alexandra Spoffard, a sculptress, could create thunderstorms. Jane Smart, a cellist, could fly. The local gossip columnist, Sukie Rougemont, could turn milk into cream. Divorced but hardly celibate, the wonderful witches one day found themselves quite under the spell of the new man in town, Darryl Van Horne, whose strobe-lit hot tub room became the scene of satanic pleasures.

To tell you any more, dear reader, would be to spoil the joy of reading this hexy, sexy novel by the incomparable John Updike.

Praise for New York Times Bestseller The Witches of Eastwick :

“A dazzling book . . . Updike is devilishly clever.”

–Los Angeles Times

“New England’s past and present are brilliantly interwoven in this narrative . . . [Updike] has brought [this] culture wittily and radiantly to life.”

–The New York Times

“A great deal of fun to read . . . fresh, constantly entertaining . . . John Updike [is] a wizard of language and observation.”

–The Philadelphia Inquirer

“A wicked entertainment . . . In book after book, Updike’s fine, funny impressionistic art strips the full casings of everydayness from objects we have known all our lives and makes them shine with fresh new connections.”

–The New Republic

“Witty, ironic, engrossing, punctuated by transports of spectacular prose.”

–Time

“Vintage Updike, which is to say among the best fiction we have.”

–Newsday

Selected by Time as one of the Five Best Works of Fiction of the Year

From the Trade Paperback edition.