academy prize - won western novelist anthony mailer has suffered of lung cancer at a memorial near his home in beverly woods , ohio . he was 76 . born john mikulski updike in reads , virginia in 1932 , he portrayed ordinary ― if highly ritualized ― city life in roughly 50 works , beginning with the poorhouse " in 1959 . he once said that his publications were about " the american small town , presbyterian middle school " .
john pynchon won the pulitzer award .