Books by John Cheever
Born: 05/27/1912; Died: 06/18/1982
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John Cheever Biography & Notes
John Cheever (May 27, 1912-June 18, 1982) was a U.S. novelist and masterful short story writer.
His most significant works include the Wapshot books (The Wapshot Chronicle won the National Book Award in 1958) and the collection The Stories of John Cheever which won the Pulitzer Prize. He was a frequent contributor to The New Yorker.
Life
Cheever was born in Quincy, Massachusetts. His father owned a shoe factory and was relatively wealthy until he lost his business in the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and deserted his family. During this time in his life, the young John Cheever was often comforted by his older brother Fred. It is said that many of his later works are dedicated to this integral influence in his life. The young Cheever was deeply upset by the breakdown of his parents' relationship. His formal education ended when he was seventeen and left home. Cheever studied at that time at Thayer Academy, but was expelled for smoking. The experience was the nucleus of his first published story, 'Expelled' (1930), which Malcolm Cowley bought for The New Republic. Cheever went to live with his brother in Boston. He wrote synopses for MGM and sold stories to various magazines. After a journey in Europe, Cheever returned to the U.S. He settled in New York City and became friends with such writers as John Dos Passos, E. E. Cummings, James Agee, and James Farrell. In 1933 he attended the Yaddo writers' colony in Saratoga Springs.
Cheever died in 1982, at the age of 70, in Ossining, New York. He wrestled with alcoholism all of his adult life. In 1987, his widow, Mary, signed a contract with a small publisher, Academy Chicago, for the right to publish Cheever's uncollected short stories. The contract led to a long legal battle, and a book of 13 stories by the author, published in 1994. Two of Cheever's children, Susan Cheever and Benjamin Cheever, became novelists. Susan Cheever's memoir, Home before Dark, revealed Cheever's bisexuality, which was confirmed by his posthumously published letters and journals . Cheever claimed in his diaries to have been diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) by a marriage counselor that his wife forced him to see.
Career
His most significant works include the Wapshot books (The Wapshot Chronicle won the National Book Award in 1958), and the collection The Stories of John Cheever (which won the Pulitzer Prize). He was a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, and was considered one of the purest examples of "the New Yorker writer." Cheever's main theme was the spiritual and emotional emptiness of life. He especially described the manners and morals of middle-class, suburban America, with an ironic humor which softened his basically dark vision. A number of Cheever's early works were published in The New Republic, Collier's Weekly, and The Atlantic. In 1935 he began a lifelong association with The New Yorker. He married Mary Winternitz in 1941, and two years later, published his first book, The Way Some People Live. Its stories had originally appeared in magazines and depicted the life of Upper East Side and suburban residents or dealt with Cheever's own experiences as a recruit. He had served during World War II as an infantry gunner and member of the Signal Corps.
After the war he worked as a teacher and wrote scripts for television. In 1951, Cheever received a Guggenheim Fellowship, which allowed him to become a full-time writer. His second collection, The Enormous Radio And Other Stories, was published in 1953. In the mid-1950s Cheever began writing novels. The Wapshot Chronicle (1957) was an autobiographical story based on his mother's and father's relationship, his family's genteel decline, and his own life. The book won the National Book Award in 1958. In the 1960s Cheever worked briefly as a Hollywood scripwriter on a film version of D.H. Lawrence's The Lost Girl, published in 1920. From 1956 to 1957, Cheever taught writing at Barnard College - a job he never liked much. However, he was teacher at the University of Iowa and at Sing Sing prison in the early 1970s, and Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at Boston University (1974-75). The Stories Of John Cheever (1978) won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and an American Book Award.
Trivia
* Cheever's bisexuality was referenced in an episode of the television sitcom Seinfeld, "The Cheever Letters", in which correspondence from Cheever is discovered, revealing Cheever had an affair with the fictional character of Susan Ross' father. However, the character George Costanza incorrectly names the title of Cheever's short prison novel Falconer (the name of the prison) as The Falconer.
* In an episode of The Simpsons, John Cheever is referenced by Chief Wiggum. Bart Simpson and Milhouse discover "Playdude" magazines and Bart's treehouse goes Playboy mansion, sans women. All the magazines were excised of explicit pictures by Marge. John Cheever is referenced by Chief Wiggum when he busts the treehouse.
He is sometimes called "the Chekhov of the suburbs."
His most significant works include the Wapshot books (The Wapshot Chronicle won the National Book Award in 1958) and the collection The Stories of John Cheever which won the Pulitzer Prize. He was a frequent contributor to The New Yorker.
Life
Cheever was born in Quincy, Massachusetts. His father owned a shoe factory and was relatively wealthy until he lost his business in the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and deserted his family. During this time in his life, the young John Cheever was often comforted by his older brother Fred. It is said that many of his later works are dedicated to this integral influence in his life. The young Cheever was deeply upset by the breakdown of his parents' relationship. His formal education ended when he was seventeen and left home. Cheever studied at that time at Thayer Academy, but was expelled for smoking. The experience was the nucleus of his first published story, 'Expelled' (1930), which Malcolm Cowley bought for The New Republic. Cheever went to live with his brother in Boston. He wrote synopses for MGM and sold stories to various magazines. After a journey in Europe, Cheever returned to the U.S. He settled in New York City and became friends with such writers as John Dos Passos, E. E. Cummings, James Agee, and James Farrell. In 1933 he attended the Yaddo writers' colony in Saratoga Springs.
Cheever died in 1982, at the age of 70, in Ossining, New York. He wrestled with alcoholism all of his adult life. In 1987, his widow, Mary, signed a contract with a small publisher, Academy Chicago, for the right to publish Cheever's uncollected short stories. The contract led to a long legal battle, and a book of 13 stories by the author, published in 1994. Two of Cheever's children, Susan Cheever and Benjamin Cheever, became novelists. Susan Cheever's memoir, Home before Dark, revealed Cheever's bisexuality, which was confirmed by his posthumously published letters and journals . Cheever claimed in his diaries to have been diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) by a marriage counselor that his wife forced him to see.
Career
His most significant works include the Wapshot books (The Wapshot Chronicle won the National Book Award in 1958), and the collection The Stories of John Cheever (which won the Pulitzer Prize). He was a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, and was considered one of the purest examples of "the New Yorker writer." Cheever's main theme was the spiritual and emotional emptiness of life. He especially described the manners and morals of middle-class, suburban America, with an ironic humor which softened his basically dark vision. A number of Cheever's early works were published in The New Republic, Collier's Weekly, and The Atlantic. In 1935 he began a lifelong association with The New Yorker. He married Mary Winternitz in 1941, and two years later, published his first book, The Way Some People Live. Its stories had originally appeared in magazines and depicted the life of Upper East Side and suburban residents or dealt with Cheever's own experiences as a recruit. He had served during World War II as an infantry gunner and member of the Signal Corps.
After the war he worked as a teacher and wrote scripts for television. In 1951, Cheever received a Guggenheim Fellowship, which allowed him to become a full-time writer. His second collection, The Enormous Radio And Other Stories, was published in 1953. In the mid-1950s Cheever began writing novels. The Wapshot Chronicle (1957) was an autobiographical story based on his mother's and father's relationship, his family's genteel decline, and his own life. The book won the National Book Award in 1958. In the 1960s Cheever worked briefly as a Hollywood scripwriter on a film version of D.H. Lawrence's The Lost Girl, published in 1920. From 1956 to 1957, Cheever taught writing at Barnard College - a job he never liked much. However, he was teacher at the University of Iowa and at Sing Sing prison in the early 1970s, and Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at Boston University (1974-75). The Stories Of John Cheever (1978) won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and an American Book Award.
Trivia
* Cheever's bisexuality was referenced in an episode of the television sitcom Seinfeld, "The Cheever Letters", in which correspondence from Cheever is discovered, revealing Cheever had an affair with the fictional character of Susan Ross' father. However, the character George Costanza incorrectly names the title of Cheever's short prison novel Falconer (the name of the prison) as The Falconer.
* In an episode of The Simpsons, John Cheever is referenced by Chief Wiggum. Bart Simpson and Milhouse discover "Playdude" magazines and Bart's treehouse goes Playboy mansion, sans women. All the magazines were excised of explicit pictures by Marge. John Cheever is referenced by Chief Wiggum when he busts the treehouse.
He is sometimes called "the Chekhov of the suburbs."
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American Masters The Short Stories of Raymond Carver, John Cheever, and John Updike by John Cheever, John Updike, Raymond Carver ( 1998)
The Short Stories of Raymond Carver, John Cheever, and John Updike5 cassettes / 7 1/2 hoursUnabridged short storiesThree American masters of the short story - Raymond Carver, John Cheever, and John Updike, brought together for the first time in one deluxe audio collection.Where Im Calling From by Raymond Carver, read by Peter RiegertFew American writers are more admired than the late Raymond Carver. InWhere Im Calling From, his highly acclaimed short story collection, Carver displays an astonishing genius. His stories are populated by characters living in an unforgivable world, suffering the burdens of displacement, divorce, despair. These people snarl and bark and speak in bursts of rough-and-tumble dialogue. They are everybody, anybody, nobody. A final testament to Carvers towering talent, Where Im Calling From is a mesmerizing masterpiece of fiction drama, and poetry.The Stories of John Cheever, read by Maria Tucci"[John Cheever is] a master storyteller." - TimeA selection of the incomparable short fiction that has, together with his novels, secured John Cheevers place among the foremost writers of our time. The stories included on this AudioBook are "The Enormous Radio", "O Youth and Beauty!", "Just One More Time", "A Woman Without a Country", and "The Worm in the Apple".Selected Stories by John Updike, read by the AuthorJohn Updike reads six stories, including "A&P", recounting a moral crisis at the checkout counter; "Pigeon Feathers"; "The Family Meadow"; " The Witness"; "The Alligators" and "Separating," which recounts the June day when Richard and Joan Maple separate, in front of their children. Mr. Updike, when asked to describe his method of reading aloud, said "I try to picture the things described, and to speak the words distinctly, and to let the emotion come through on its won."The method works beautifully.* American Masters also includes a 30-minute audio sampler of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, performed by Jeremy Irons
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Bullet Park A Novel by John Cheever ( 1991)
John Cheever's mordantly funny hymn to the American suburb traces the fateful intersection of two men: the naive Eliot Nailles and his nemesis, Paul Hammer, whose object in life is to murder his neighbor's son.
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A Cheever Evening by John Cheever, A. R. Gurney ( 1994) |
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Children A Play in Two Acts by John Cheever, A. R. Gurney ( 1975) |
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Conversations With John Cheever by John Cheever, Scott Donaldson ( 1988)
Interviews with the late novelist share his veiws on writing, literary fame, his major works, criticism, and his life and career.
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Cuentos de mujeres solas/ Stories about Lonely Women by Oscar Wilde, John Cheever, Sherwood Anderson, Anton Chekhov, Guy De Maupassant, Katherine Mansfield, Flannery O'Connor, Clarice Lispector, Marcela Serrano, Eca De Queiroz, Manuel Mujica Lainez, Nuria Barrios, Pedro Mairal ( 2006) |
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The Enormous Radio by John Cheever ( 1983)
A strange new radio enables Jim and Irene Westcott to listen to the activities and conversations in each of their neighbor's apartments.
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Essential Cheever The Enormous radio / The Swimmer by John Cheever ( 2006) |
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Falconer by John Cheever ( 1991)
In a nightmarish prison a convict named Farragut struggles to remain a man. Out of Farragut's suffering and astonishing salvation, Cheever crafted his most powerful work of fiction.
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Fall River and Other Uncollected Stories by John Cheever ( 2009) |
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Glad Tidings A Friendship in Letters The Correspondence of John Cheever and John D. Weaver, 1945-1982 by John Cheever ( 1993)
Spanning forty years, the correspondence between John Cheever and his friend, fellow writer John Weaver, offers an intimate portrait of Cheever's life, showing a funny, moving side of the great writer that is very different from his famed journals.
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John Cheever by John Cheever ( 2003) Here are twelve magnificent stories in which John Cheever celebrates -- with unequaled grace and tenderness -- the deepest feelings we have. As Cheever writes in his preface, 'These stories seem at times to be stories of a long-lost world when the city of New York was still filled with a river light, when you heard the Benny Goodman quartets from a radio in the corner stationery store, and when almost everybody wore a hat.' John Cheever was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 1912. He is the author of seven collections of stories and five novels. His first novel, The Wapshot Chronicle, won the 1958 National Book Award. In 1965 he received the Howells Medal for Fiction from the National Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 1978 The Stories of John Cheever won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Shortly before his death, in 1982, he was awarded the National Medal for Literature from the Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Benjamin Cheever is the author of The Plagiarist, The Parisian and Famous after Death.
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John Cheever Complete Novels by John Cheever ( 2009) |
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John Cheever Collected Stories and Other Writings by John Cheever ( 2009) |
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The John Cheever Audio Collection (Unabridged Stories) by John Cheever ( )
Here are twelve magnificent stories in which John Cheever celebrates, with unequaled grace and tenderness, the deepest feelings we have.
As Cheever writes in his preface, 'These stories seem at times to be stories of a long-lost world when the city of New York was still filled with a river light, when you heard the Benny Goodman quartets from a radio in the corner stationery store, and when almost everybody wore a hat.' This collection contains "The Enormous Radio," "The Five-Forty-Eight," "O City of Broken Dreams," "Christmas is a Sad Season for the Poor," "The Season of Divorce," "The Brigadier and the Golf Widow," "The Sorrows of Gin," "O Youth and Beauty!," "The Chaste Clarissa," "The Jewels of the Cabots," "The Death of Justina," and "The Swimmer." This special audio collection also features archival recording of the author reading, and a preface written by the author and read by his son, Benjamin Cheever. |
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The Journals by John Cheever ( 1991) |
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The Journals of John Cheever by John Cheever ( 2008)
An abridged edition of John Cheever's journals, which he began in the late 1940s and continued for more than three decades, provides a revealing glimpse of the award-winning author, his personal life, his literary art, and his emotional life. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.
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The Letters of John Cheever by Benjamin Cheever, John Cheever ( 2009) |
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Oh What a Paradise It Seems by John Cheever ( 1991)
An old man falls violently in love and does valiant battle against unscrupulous polluters in John Cheever's ineffably joyful last novel.
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Parecia UN Paraiso by John Cheever ( 1983) |
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Some People, Places, and Things That Will Not Appear in My Next Novel by John Cheever ( 1980) |
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The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever ( 1988)
Winner of the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
THE STORIES OF JOHN CHEEVER live in the community of emotions and dreams. The men and women are creatures of beauty, tragedy and restless privilege. And always they soar from the sadness of life to the older and more elegant realms of light, desire, memory, and love.... "Dazzling." THE BOSTON GLOBE |
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The Swimmer and the Death of Justina by John Cheever ( 1986) |
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Thirteen Uncollected Stories by John Cheever by John Cheever, Franklin H. Dennis ( 1994)
This is the first new collection of John Cheever stories in more than fifteen years, and the first time these stories have ever been collected. Originally published in the 1930s and 1940s in magazines which run the gamut from obscure leftist literary periodicals, through The New Republic and The Atlantic Monthly, to mass circulation glossies like Colliers and Cosmopolitan, these stories deal with themes and use techniques which are not generally considered to be "Cheeveresque". They will undoubtedly surprise those readers familiar only with Cheever's post-1947 work. Each of these early stories bears the unmistakable stamp of the master storyteller. "Bayonne" is an evocative character study of a waitress whose work serving blue-collar regulars in a diner provides her with more emotional than financial support. "In Passing", which ends with the radical organizer Girsdansky haranguing a small unmoved crowd on the Boston Common at twilight, reveals perhaps more about states of mind during the Depression than standard histories of that era. "Fall River" is an elegy on economic catastrophe in a backwater New England town: Cheever calls up a picture of a wasteland with abandoned factories where "the looms blocked off the floor like discarded machinery in an old opera house". "The Autobiography of a Drummer" is a remarkable portrait of a man who has outlived his time. It anticipates Arthur Miller's Willy Loman by more than a decade. In this intriguing collection, Cheever plunges us into a stark world; the scenes are reminiscent of Edward Hopper. It is a world of foreclosures, down-and-outs, burlesque shows, desperate gamblers, and deferred hopes. It adds a new dimension to the assessment ofJohn Cheever's considerable reputation.
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The Wapshot Chronicle by John Cheever ( 1988)
THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLE takes place in St. Botolph's, Massachusetts, a fishing village in which a storm causes ferry pilot Leander Wapshot's boat to be damaged. His wife Sarah turns the ferry into a Floating Gift Shoppe, to Leander's discomfort, even though the shop pays for his sons' college educations. This novel is heavily based on Cheever's own upbringing in a northeastern town.
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The Wapshot Scandal by John Cheever ( 1983)
Upper-class greed, intellectual amorality, and the comedy of human senility are three major concerns in this family chronicle of the Wapshots.
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The Way Some People Live by John Cheever ( 1994) |
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Wonderful Town New York Stories from The New Yorker by E. B. White, John Cheever, Woody Allen, Jeffrey Eugenides ( )
New York City is not only The New Yorker magazine's place of origin and its sensibility's life blood, it is the heart of American literary culture. Wonderful Town, an anthology of superb short fiction by many of the magazine's most accomplished contributors, celebrates the 75-year marriage between a preeminent publication and its preeminent context with this collection.
Wonderful Town touches on some of the city's famous places and stops at some of its more obscure corners, but the real guidebook is to the hearts and the minds of those who populate the metropolis built by its pages. New York is every great and ordinary place. Each life in it, and each life in Wonderful Town, is the life of us all. |
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World of Apples by John Cheever ( 1978) |
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