Kit believes that the family is "sacred," so he really puts his heart into his investigation of a malicious home wrecker who is not content with a bit of "normal suburban adultery," but feels compelled to infiltrate and destroy entire families.

Not for nothing was he known as a "chronicler of suburban adultery".

(Scott) * 'LITTLE CHILDREN' (R, 130 minutes) Todd Field's adaptation of Tom Perrotta's novel of suburban adultery is unfailingly intelligent and faultlessly acted.

Andrew Billen said in The Times "I am delighted that, as with The Palace, the channel is setting before us something other than a grim regional detective or a comedy drama about suburban adultery.

Two other novels from this period, A Month of Sundays (1975), the first in Updike's so-called Scarlet Letter trilogy, and Marry Me: A Romance (1976), are also meditations on suburban adultery.

The bard of the middle-class mundane, the chronicler of suburban adultery and angst, tackling Islamic radicalism and the call to jihad?