Liz Forrest “are modeled more or less exactly” on Updike and his wife Mary Pennington Updike. Updike was under the influence of contemporary authors J. D. Salinger, whose work he discovered while attending Harvard University, and John Cheever whose works he had read in The New Yorker. Indeed, the title of “A Trillion Feet of Gas” is “Salingeresque” according to literary critic William H. Pritchard. Footnotes Sources Begley, Adam. 2014. Updike. HarperCollins Publishers, New York. Detweiler, Robert. 1984. John Updike. Twayne Publishers, G. K. Hall & Co., Boston, Massachusetts. (Paperback). Pritchard, William H. 2000. Updike: America’s Man of Letters. Steerforth Press, Southroyalton, Vermont. French, Sean (February 4, 1995). "Beware the Perilous Pitfalls of Brightly Purple Prose". The Age (Melbourne, Australia). 1959 short stories Short stories by John Updike