John updike biography short story a&p

Short story by John Updike

"A&P" is a tragicomic work of short fiction by John Updike which first appeared in the July 22, 1961 issue of The New Yorker.

The story was collected in Pigeon Feathers in 1961, published by Alfred A. Knopf. The work is frequently included in anthologies.^[1][2]

Plot

Sammy, a teenage clerk in an A&P grocery, is working the cash register on a hot summer day when three pretty young women about his age enter, in bathing suits and bare feet, to buy snacks.

Sammy gawks at the girls; he imagines details about the girls based on their appearance alone, impressions that, to his surprise, are shaken when the leader of the trio, an enchantingly gorgeous beauty he dubs "Queenie", speaks in a voice unlike that which he had created in his imagination.

Lengel, the prudish