The villages of John Updike's title are towns in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Massachusetts where he himself has lived--and where his hero, a wealthy software entrepreneur named Owen Mackenzie, has spent most of his life. Now retired and living in Haskells Crossing, Massachusetts, Owen is facing death. But his life has been a series of sexual adventures--both marital and adulterous (and mainly the latter)--that form the basis for the story of an arrogant but honest man in Updike's long roster of characters who try, and fail, to live up to their own moral expectations. A New York Times Notable Book for 2004.