John William Cheever (May 27, 1912 – June 18, 1982) was an American short story writer and novelist. He is sometimes called "the
Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; 29 January 1860 Old Style date 17 January. – 15 July 1904 Old Style date 2 July.) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer who is considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career ...
of the suburbs". His fiction is mostly set in the
Upper East Side
The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 96th Street to the north, the East River to the east, 59th Street to the south, and Central Park/Fifth Avenue to the wes ...
of
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
villages based on various South Shore towns around
Quincy, Massachusetts
Quincy ( ) is a coastal U.S. city in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the largest city in the county and a part of Greater Boston, Metropolitan Boston as one of Boston's immediate southern suburbs. Its population in 2020 was 1 ...
, where he was born; and Italy, especially
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
Goodbye, My Brother
"Goodbye, My Brother" is a short story by John Cheever, first published in The New Yorker (August 25, 1951), and collected in The Enormous Radio and Other Stories (1953). The work also appears in The Stories of John Cheever (1978).
Plot
"Goodby ...
The Country Husband
"The Country Husband" is a short story by John Cheever which first appeared in ''The New Yorker'' on November 20, 1954. The work was included in the collection of Cheever's short fiction '' The Housebreaker of Shady Hill and Other Stories'' (195 ...
", and " The Swimmer", and he also wrote five novels: ''
The Wapshot Chronicle
''The Wapshot Chronicle'' is the debut novel by American author John Cheever about an eccentric family that lives in a Massachusetts fishing village. Published in 1957, it won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction in 1958,from the Awards 50-ye ...
'' (
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors.
The Nat ...
, 1958),"National Book Awards – 1958"
National Book Foundation
The National Book Foundation (NBF) is an American nonprofit organization established, "to raise the cultural appreciation of great writing in America". Established in 1989 by National Book Awards, Inc.,Edwin McDowell. "Book Notes: 'The Joy Luc ...
. Retrieved 2012-03-14. (With essay by Neil Baldwinbr> from the Awards 50-year anniversary publications and from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.)
'' The Wapshot Scandal'' (
William Dean Howells Medal
The William Dean Howells Medal is awarded by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Established in 1925 and named for William Dean Howells
William Dean Howells (; March 1, 1837 – May 11, 1920) was an American realist novelist, literary cr ...
, 1965), '' Bullet Park'' (1969), '' Falconer'' (1977) and a novella '' Oh What a Paradise It Seems'' (1982).
His main themes include the duality of human nature: sometimes dramatized as the disparity between a character's decorous social persona and inner corruption, and sometimes as a conflict between two characters (often brothers) who embody the salient aspects of both – light and dark, flesh and spirit. Many of his works also express a nostalgia for a vanishing way of life (as evoked by the mythical St. Botolphs in the ''Wapshot'' novels), characterized by abiding cultural traditions and a profound sense of community, as opposed to the alienating nomadism of modern
suburbia
A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include Commercial area, commercial and mixed-use development, mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a ...
.
A compilation of his short stories, ''
The Stories of John Cheever
''The Stories of John Cheever'' is a 1978 short story collection by American author John Cheever. It contains some of his most famous stories, including "The Enormous Radio", "Goodbye, My Brother", "The Country Husband", " The Five-Forty-Eight" ...
National Book Critics Circle Award
The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English"."National Book Awards – 1981" National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-14. With essays by Willie Perdomo, Matthew Pitt, and Robert Wilder from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.Cheever's ''Stories'' won the 1981 award for paperback Fiction. From 1980 to 1983 in National Book Awards history there were dual hardcover and paperback awards in most categories. Most of the paperback award-winners were reprints, including this one.
On April 27, 1982, six weeks before his death, Cheever was awarded the National Medal for Literature by the
American Academy of Arts and Letters
The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...
. His work has been included in the
Library of America
The Library of America (LOA) is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature. Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, the LOA has published over 300 volumes by authors rang ...
.
Early life and education
John William Cheever was born in
Quincy, Massachusetts
Quincy ( ) is a coastal U.S. city in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the largest city in the county and a part of Greater Boston, Metropolitan Boston as one of Boston's immediate southern suburbs. Its population in 2020 was 1 ...
, the second child of Frederick Lincoln Cheever and Mary Liley Cheever. His father was a prosperous shoe salesman, and Cheever spent much of his childhood in a large
Victorian house
In Great Britain and former British colonies, a Victorian house generally means any house built during the reign of Queen Victoria. During the Industrial Revolution, successive housing booms resulted in the building of many millions of Victorian ...
, at 123 Winthrop Avenue, in the then-genteel suburb of
Wollaston, Massachusetts
Wollaston, Massachusetts, is a neighborhood in the city of Quincy, Massachusetts. Divided by Hancock Street or Route 3A, the Wollaston Beach side is known as Wollaston Park, while the Wollaston Hill side is known as Wollaston Heights.
It is b ...
. In the mid-1920s, however, as the New England shoe and textile industries began their long decline, Frederick Cheever lost most of his money and began to drink heavily. To pay the bills, Mary Cheever opened a gift shop in downtown Quincy—an "abysmal humiliation" for the family, as John saw it. In 1926, Cheever began attending
Thayer Academy
Thayer Academy (TA) is a private, co-educational, college-preparatory day school located in Braintree, Massachusetts, United States. The academy, conceived in 1871 at the bequest of General Sylvanus Thayer, known as the father of the United Sta ...
, a private day school, but he found the atmosphere stifling and performed poorly, and finally transferred to Quincy High in 1928. A year later, he won a short story contest sponsored by the ''
Boston Herald
The ''Boston Herald'' is an American daily newspaper whose primary market is Boston, Massachusetts, and its surrounding area. It was founded in 1846 and is one of the oldest daily newspapers in the United States. It has been awarded eight Pulit ...
'' and was invited back to Thayer as a "special student" on academic probation. His grades continued to be poor, however, and, in March 1930, he was either expelled for smoking or (more likely) departed of his own accord when the headmaster delivered an ultimatum to the effect that he must either apply himself or leave. The 18-year-old Cheever wrote a sardonic account of this experience, titled " Expelled", which was subsequently published in ''
The New Republic
''The New Republic'' is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts. Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in hum ...
''. (1930).
Around this time, Cheever's older brother, Fred, forced to withdraw from Dartmouth in 1926 because of the family's financial crisis, re-entered Cheever's life "when the situation was most painful and critical", as Cheever later wrote. After the 1932
crash
Crash or CRASH may refer to:
Common meanings
* Collision, an impact between two or more objects
* Crash (computing), a condition where a program ceases to respond
* Cardiac arrest, a medical condition in which the heart stops beating
* Couch su ...
of
Kreuger & Toll
Kreuger & Toll was a company founded on May 18, 1908 by two Swedish engineers, Ivar Kreuger and Paul Toll, with Henrik Kreüger working as a consultant and chief engineer.
History
Early 1908, Ivar and his cousin Henrik Kreüger planned to estab ...
, in which Frederick Cheever had invested what was left of his money, the Cheever house on Winthrop Avenue was lost to foreclosure. The parents separated, while John and Fred took an apartment together on Beacon Hill, in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
. In 1933, John wrote to Elizabeth Ames, the director of the
Yaddo
Yaddo is an artists' community located on a estate in Saratoga Springs, New York. Its mission is "to nurture the creative process by providing an opportunity for artists to work without interruption in a supportive environment.". On March ...
artist's colony in
Saratoga Springs, New York
Saratoga Springs is a city in Saratoga County, New York, United States. The population was 28,491 at the 2020 census. The name reflects the presence of mineral springs in the area, which has made Saratoga a popular resort destination for over 2 ...
: "The idea of leaving the city", he said, "has never been so distant or desirable." Ames denied his first application but offered him a place the following year, whereupon Cheever decided to sever his "ungainly attachment" to his brother. Cheever spent the summer of 1934 at Yaddo, which would serve as a second home for much of his life.
Career
Early writings
For the next few years, Cheever divided his time between Manhattan, Saratoga, Lake George (where he was caretaker of the Yaddo-owned Triuna Island), and Quincy, where he continued to visit his parents, who had reconciled and moved to an apartment at 60 Spear Street. Cheever drove from one place to another in a dilapidated Model A roadster, but had no permanent address. In 1935, Katharine White of ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' bought Cheever's story "Buffalo", for $45—the first of many that Cheever would publish in the magazine.
Maxim Lieber
Maxim Lieber (October 15, 1897 – April 10, 1993) was a prominent American literary agent in New York City during the 1930s and 1940s. The Soviet spy Whittaker Chambers named him as an accomplice in 1949, and Lieber fled first to Mexico and then ...
became his literary agent, 1935–1941. In 1938, he began work for the
Federal Writers' Project
The Federal Writers' Project (FWP) was a federal government project in the United States created to provide jobs for out-of-work writers during the Great Depression. It was part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a New Deal program. It ...
in
Washington, D. C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, Na ...
, which he considered an embarrassing boondoggle. As an editor for the ''WPA Guide to New York City'', Cheever was charged with (as he put it) "twisting into order the sentences written by some incredibly lazy bastards." He quit after less than a year and a few months later he met his future wife, Mary Winternitz, seven years his junior. She was a daughter of Milton Winternitz, dean of
Yale Medical School
The Yale School of Medicine is the graduate medical school at Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was founded in 1810 as the Medical Institution of Yale College and formally opened in 1813.
The primary te ...
, and granddaughter of
Thomas A. Watson
Thomas Augustus Watson (January 18, 1854 – December 13, 1934) was an assistant to Alexander Graham Bell, notably in the invention of the telephone in 1876.
Life and work
Born in Salem, Massachusetts, United States Watson was a bookkeeper and ...
, an assistant to Alexander Graham Bell during the invention of the telephone. They married in 1941.
Cheever enlisted in the Army on May 7, 1942. His first collection of short stories, ''The Way Some People Live'', was published in 1943 to mixed reviews. Cheever himself came to despise the book as "embarrassingly immature", and for the rest of his life destroyed every copy he could lay his hands on. However, the book may have saved his life after falling into the hands of Major
Leonard Spigelgass
Leonard Spigelgass (November 26, 1908 – February 15, 1985) was an American film producer and screenwriter.
During his career, Spigelgass wrote the scripts for 11 Academy Award-winning films. He himself was nominated in 1950 for the story for '' ...
, an
MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...
executive and officer in the
Army Signal Corps
The United States Army Signal Corps (USASC) is a branch of the United States Army that creates and manages communications and information systems for the command and control of combined arms forces. It was established in 1860, the brainchild of Ma ...
, who was struck by Cheever's "childlike sense of wonder." Early that summer, Cheever was transferred to the former
Paramount
Paramount (from the word ''paramount'' meaning "above all others") may refer to:
Entertainment and music companies
* Paramount Global, also known simply as Paramount, an American mass media company formerly known as ViacomCBS. The following busin ...
studio in
Astoria, Queens
Astoria is a neighborhood in the western portion of the New York City borough of Queens. Astoria is bounded by the East River and is adjacent to three other Queens neighborhoods: Long Island City to the southwest, Sunnyside to the southeast ...
, New York City, where he commuted via subway from his apartment in
Chelsea
Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to:
Places Australia
* Chelsea, Victoria
Canada
* Chelsea, Nova Scotia
* Chelsea, Quebec
United Kingdom
* Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames
** Chelsea (UK Parliament consti ...
, Manhattan, New York City. Meanwhile, most of his old infantry company was killed on a Normandy beach during the
D-Day
The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D ...
invasion. Cheever's daughter Susan was born on July 31, 1943.
After the war, Cheever and his family moved to an apartment building at 400 East 59th Street, near Sutton Place, Manhattan; almost every morning for the next five years, he would dress in his only suit and take the elevator to a maid's room in the basement, where he stripped to his boxer shorts and wrote until lunchtime. In 1946, he accepted a $4,800 advance from
Random House
Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...
to resume work on his novel, ''The Holly Tree'', which he had discontinued during the war. "The Enormous Radio" appeared in the May 17, 1947 issue of ''The New Yorker'' — a Kafkaesque tale about a sinister radio that broadcasts the private conversations of tenants in a New York apartment building. A startling advance on Cheever's early, more naturalistic work, the story elicited a fan letter from the magazine's irascible editor,
Harold Ross
Harold Wallace Ross (November 6, 1892 – December 6, 1951) was an American journalist who co-founded ''The New Yorker'' magazine in 1925 with his wife Jane Grant, and was its editor-in-chief until his death.
Early life
Born in a prospector's ...
: "It will turn out to be a memorable one, or I am a fish." Cheever's son Benjamin was born on May 4, 1948.
Mid-career
Cheever's work became longer and more complex, apparently a protest against the "
slice of life
Slice of life is a depiction of mundane experiences in art and entertainment. In theater, slice of life refers to naturalism, while in literary parlance it is a narrative technique in which a seemingly arbitrary sequence of events in a character ...
" fiction typical of ''The New Yorker'' in those years. An early draft of "The Day the Pig Fell into the Well"—a long story with elaborate Chekhovian nuances, meant to "operate something like a
rondo
The rondo is an instrumental musical form introduced in the Classical period.
Etymology
The English word ''rondo'' comes from the Italian form of the French ''rondeau'', which means "a little round".
Despite the common etymological root, rondo ...
", as Cheever wrote to his friend and ''New Yorker'' editor William Maxwell—was completed in 1949, though the magazine did not make space for it until five years later. In 1951, Cheever wrote "Goodbye, My Brother", after a gloomy summer in
Martha's Vineyard
Martha's Vineyard, often simply called the Vineyard, is an island in the Northeastern United States, located south of Cape Cod in Dukes County, Massachusetts, known for being a popular, affluent summer colony. Martha's Vineyard includes the s ...
. Largely on the strength of these two stories (still in manuscript at the time), Cheever was awarded a
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...
. On May 28, 1951, Cheever moved to Beechwood, the suburban estate of Frank A. Vanderlip, a banker,"How Cheever Really Felt About Living in Suburbia" by Joseph Berger, ''The New York Times'', April 30, 2009 (p. CT1, 5/3/09, CT ed.). Retrieved 5/2/09. in the Westchester hamlet of
Scarborough-on-Hudson
Briarcliff Manor () is a suburban village in Westchester County, New York, north of New York City. It is on of land on the east bank of the Hudson River, geographically shared by the towns of Mount Pleasant and Ossining. Briarcliff Manor inc ...
, where he rented a small cottage on the edge of the estate. The house, coincidentally, had been occupied before the Cheevers by another suburban chronicler, Richard Yates. In Scarborough, he was a casual volunteer for the
Briarcliff Manor Fire Department
The Briarcliff Manor Fire Department (BMFD) provides fire protection and emergency medical services to the village of Briarcliff Manor, New York and its hamlet Briarcliff Manor, New York#Neighborhoods, Scarborough. The volunteer fire department ...
.
Cheever's second collection, ''The Enormous Radio'', was published in 1953. Reviews were mostly positive, though Cheever's reputation continued to suffer because of his close association with ''The New Yorker'' (considered middlebrow by such influential critics as
Dwight Macdonald
Dwight Macdonald (March 24, 1906 – December 19, 1982) was an American writer, editor, film critic, social critic, literary critic, philosopher, and activist. Macdonald was a member of the New York Intellectuals and editor of their leftist maga ...
), and he was particularly pained by the general preference for
J. D. Salinger
Jerome David Salinger (; January 1, 1919 January 27, 2010) was an American author best known for his 1951 novel ''The Catcher in the Rye''. Salinger got his start in 1940, before serving in World War II, by publishing several short stories in '' ...
's '' Nine Stories'', published around the same time. Meanwhile, Random House demanded that Cheever either produce a publishable novel or pay back his advance, whereupon Cheever wrote Mike Bessie at
Harper & Brothers
Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins based in New York City.
History
J. & J. Harper (1817–1833)
James Harper and his brother John, printers by training, started their book publishin ...
("These old bones are up for sale"), who bought him out of his Random House contract. In the summer of 1956, Cheever finished ''The Wapshot Chronicle'' while vacationing in
Friendship, Maine
Friendship (formerly known as Meduncook) is a town in Knox County, Maine, United States. It is 31 miles (49.9 km) southeast of Augusta. The population was 1,142 at the 2020 census.
History
Abenaki Native Americans called it Meduncook, me ...
, and received a congratulatory telegram from William Maxwell: "WELL ROARED LION". With the proceeds from the sale of film rights to "The Housebreaker of Shady Hill", Cheever and his family spent the following year in Italy, where his son Federico was born on March 9, 1957 ("We wanted to call him Frederick", Cheever wrote, "but there is of course no K in the alphabet here and I gave up after an hour or two").
''The Wapshot Scandal'' was published in 1964, and received perhaps the best reviews of Cheever's career up to that point (amid quibbles about the novel's episodic structure). Cheever appeared on the cover of ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' magazine's March 27 issue, this for an appreciative profile, "Ovid in Ossining". (In 1961, Cheever had moved to a stately, stone-ended
Dutch Colonial
Dutch Colonial is a style of domestic architecture, primarily characterized by gambrel roofs having curved eaves along the length of the house. Modern versions built in the early 20th century are more accurately referred to as "Dutch Colonial Rev ...
farmhouse in Ossining, on the east bank of the
Hudson
Hudson may refer to:
People
* Hudson (given name)
* Hudson (surname)
* Henry Hudson, English explorer
* Hudson (footballer, born 1986), Hudson Fernando Tobias de Carvalho, Brazilian football right-back
* Hudson (footballer, born 1988), Hudso ...
.) "The Swimmer" appeared in the July 18, 1964, issue of ''The New Yorker''. Cheever noted with chagrin that the story (one of his best) appeared toward the back of the issue—behind a
John Updike
John Hoyer Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009) was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once (the others being Booth ...
story—since, as it happened, Maxwell and other editors at the magazine were a little bewildered by its non-''New Yorker''ish surrealism. In the summer of 1966, a screen adaptation of "The Swimmer", starring
Burt Lancaster
Burton Stephen Lancaster (November 2, 1913 – October 20, 1994) was an American actor and producer. Initially known for playing tough guys with a tender heart, he went on to achieve success with more complex and challenging roles over a 45-yea ...
, was filmed in Westport, Connecticut. Cheever was a frequent visitor on the set, and made a cameo appearance in the movie.
By then Cheever's alcoholism had become severe, exacerbated by torment concerning his bisexuality. Still, he blamed most of his marital woes on his wife, and in 1966 he consulted a psychiatrist, David C. Hays, about her hostility and "needless darkness". After a session with Mary Cheever, the psychiatrist asked to see the couple jointly; Cheever, heartened, believed his wife's difficult behavior would finally be addressed. At the joint session, however, Hays said (as Cheever noted in his journal) that Cheever himself was the problem: "a neurotic man, narcissistic, egocentric, friendless, and so deeply involved in isown defensive illusions that
e has
E, or e, is the fifth letter and the second vowel letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''e'' (pronounced ); plura ...
invented a manic-depressive wife." Cheever soon terminated therapy.
Later life and career
''Bullet Park'' was published in 1969, and received a devastating review from Benjamin DeMott on the front page of ''
The New York Times Book Review
''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...
'': "John Cheever's short stories are and will remain lovely birds... But in the gluey atmosphere of ''Bullet Park'' no birds sing." Cheever's alcoholic depression deepened, and in May he resumed psychiatric treatment (which again proved fruitless). He began an affair with actress
Hope Lange
Hope Elise Ross Lange (November 28, 1933 – December 19, 2003) was an American film, stage, and television actress. She was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress ...
in the late 1960s.
On May 12, 1973, Cheever awoke coughing uncontrollably and learned at the hospital that he had almost died from
pulmonary edema
Pulmonary edema, also known as pulmonary congestion, is excessive edema, liquid accumulation in the parenchyma, tissue and pulmonary alveolus, air spaces (usually alveoli) of the lungs. It leads to impaired gas exchange and may cause hypoxemia an ...
caused by alcoholism. After a month in the hospital, he returned home vowing never to drink again; however, he resumed drinking in August. Despite his precarious health, he spent the fall semester teaching (and drinking, both with fellow writer-teacher,
Raymond Carver
Raymond Clevie Carver Jr. (May 25, 1938 – August 2, 1988) was an American short story writer and poet. He contributed to the revitalization of the American short story during the 1980s.
Early life
Carver was born in Clatskanie, Oregon, a mi ...
) at the
Iowa Writers' Workshop
The Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa, is a celebrated graduate-level creative writing program in the United States. The writer Lan Samantha Chang is its director. Graduates earn a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in Creative Wri ...
, where his students included
T. C. Boyle
Thomas Coraghessan Boyle, also known as T. C. Boyle and T. Coraghessan Boyle (born December 2, 1948), is an American novelist and short story writer. Since the mid-1970s, he has published sixteen novels and more than 100 short stories. He won the ...
,
Allan Gurganus
Allan may refer to:
People
* Allan (name), a given name and surname, including list of people and characters with this name
* Allan (footballer, born 1984) (Allan Barreto da Silva), Brazilian football striker
* Allan (footballer, born 1989) ( ...
, and Ron Hansen. As his marriage continued to deteriorate, Cheever accepted a professorship at
Boston University
Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...
the following year and moved into a fourth-floor walkup apartment at 71 Bay State Road. Cheever's drinking soon became suicidal and, in March 1975, his brother Fred, now virtually indigent, but sober after his own lifelong bout with alcoholism, drove John back to Ossining. On April 9, Cheever was admitted to the Smithers Alcoholic Rehabilitation Unit in New York, where he shared a bedroom and bath with four other men. Driven home by his wife on May 7, Cheever never drank alcohol again.
In March 1977, Cheever appeared on the cover of ''
Newsweek
''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...
'' with the caption, "A Great American Novel: John Cheever's '' Falconer.''" The novel was No. 1 on the ''New York Times'' Best Seller list for three weeks. ''The Stories of John Cheever'' appeared in October 1978, and became one of the most successful collections ever, selling 125,000 copies in hardback and winning universal acclaim.
Cheever was awarded the
Edward MacDowell Medal
The Edward MacDowell Medal is an award which has been given since 1960 to one person annually who has made an outstanding contribution to American culture and the arts. It is given by MacDowell, the first artist residency program in the United Sta ...
for outstanding contribution to the arts by the
MacDowell Colony
MacDowell is an artist's residency program in Peterborough, New Hampshire, United States, founded in 1907 by composer Edward MacDowell and his wife, pianist and philanthropist Marian MacDowell. Prior to July 2020, it was known as the MacDowell ...
in 1979.
Personal life
Cheever's marriage was complicated by his sexuality. Variously described as gay, homosexual, or bisexual, Cheever had relationships with both men and women, including a short relationship with composer
Ned Rorem
Ned Rorem (October 23, 1923 – November 18, 2022) was an American composer of contemporary classical music and writer. Best known for his art songs, which number over 500, Rorem was the leading American of his time writing in the genre. Althou ...
and an affair with actress
Hope Lange
Hope Elise Ross Lange (November 28, 1933 – December 19, 2003) was an American film, stage, and television actress. She was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress ...
. Cheever's longest affair was with a student of his, Max Zimmer, who lived in the Cheever family home. Cheever's daughter, Susan, described her parents' marriage as "European", saying: "they were people who felt their feelings weren't necessarily a reason to shatter a family. They certainly hurt each other plenty but they didn't necessarily see that as a reason for divorce."
Illness and death
In the summer of 1981, a tumor was discovered in Cheever's right lung, and, in late November, he returned to the hospital and learned that the cancer had spread to his femur, pelvis, and bladder. His last novel, '' Oh What a Paradise It Seems,'' was published in March 1982; it received respectful reviews in part because it was widely known the author was dying of cancer. On April 27, he received the National Medal for Literature at
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhatta ...
, where colleagues were shocked by his ravaged appearance after months of cancer therapy. "A page of good prose", he declared in his remarks, "remains invincible."
John Updike
John Hoyer Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009) was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once (the others being Booth ...
wrote that "All the literary acolytes assembled there fell quite silent, astonished by such faith."
When Cheever died on June 18, 1982, flags in Ossining were lowered to half staff for ten days. He is buried at First Parish Cemetery,
Norwell, Massachusetts
Norwell is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 11,351 at the 2020 United States census. The town's southeastern border runs along the North River (Massachusetts Bay), North R ...
.
Posthumous
In 1987, Cheever's 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 entitled ''Fall River and Other Uncollected Stories'', published in 1994 by
Academy Chicago Publishers
Academy Chicago Publishers is a trade book publisher founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1975 by Anita Miller and Jordan Miller who continue to select what is published. It was purchased by Chicago Review Press in 2014.
"... Academy Chicago Limited i ...
Benjamin
Benjamin ( he, ''Bīnyāmīn''; "Son of (the) right") blue letter bible: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h3225/kjv/wlc/0-1/ H3225 - yāmîn - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv) was the last of the two sons of Jacob and Rachel (Jacob's thir ...
, became writers. Susan's memoir, ''Home Before Dark'' (1984), revealed Cheever's bisexuality, which was confirmed by his posthumously published letters and journals. This was parodied to comedic effect in a 1992 episode of the TV sitcom ''
Seinfeld
''Seinfeld'' ( ) is an American television sitcom created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld. It aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, over nine seasons and List of Seinfeld episodes, 180 episodes. It stars Seinfeld as Jerry Seinfeld ( ...
'', when the character Susan discovers explicit love letters from Cheever to her father.
After
Blake Bailey
John Blake Bailey (born July 1, 1963) is an American writer and educator. Bailey is known for his literary biographies of Richard Yates, John Cheever, Charles Jackson, and Philip Roth. He is the editor of the Library of America omnibus editi ...
published his biography of Richard Yates, ''A Tragic Honesty'' (2003), Cheever's son Ben suggested Bailey write an authoritative biography of Cheever. It was published by
Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. () is an American publishing house that was founded by Alfred A. Knopf Sr. and Blanche Knopf in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers in ...
on March 10, 2009, and won that year's
National Book Critics Circle Award
The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English".Francis Parkman Prize
The Francis Parkman Prize, named after Francis Parkman, is awarded by the Society of American Historians for the best book in American history each year. Its purpose is to promote literary distinction in historical writing. The Society of American ...
, and was a finalist for the
Pulitzer Pulitzer may refer to:
*Joseph Pulitzer, a 20th century media magnate
*Pulitzer Prize, an annual U.S. journalism, literary, and music award
*Pulitzer (surname)
* Pulitzer, Inc., a U.S. newspaper chain
*Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, a non-pro ...
and
James Tait Black Memorial Prize
The James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are literary prizes awarded for literature written in the English language. They, along with the Hawthornden Prize, are Britain's oldest literary awards. Based at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, Unit ...
.
Also in 2009, Cheever was featured in ''Soul of a People: Writing America's Story'', a 90-minute documentary about the WPA Writers' Project. His life during the 1930s is also highlighted in the companion book, ''Soul of a People: The WPA Writers' Project Uncovers Depression America''.
Works
Novels
* ''
The Wapshot Chronicle
''The Wapshot Chronicle'' is the debut novel by American author John Cheever about an eccentric family that lives in a Massachusetts fishing village. Published in 1957, it won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction in 1958,from the Awards 50-ye ...
The Housebreaker of Shady Hill and Other Stories
''The Housebreaker of Shady Hill and Other Stories'' is a collection of short fiction by John Cheever. Composed of eight short stories, the volume was first published by Harper & Bros. in 1958. Reissued by Hillman/MacFadden in 1961, the works a ...
'' (1958)
* ''
Some People, Places, and Things That Will Not Appear in My Next Novel
''Some People, Places and Things That Will Not Appear In My Next Novel'' is a collection of short fiction by John Cheever, published by Harper and Bros. in 1961. These nine short stories first appeared individually in ''The New Yorker'' or '' Es ...
'' (1961)
* ''
The Brigadier and the Golf Widow
''The Brigadier and the Golf Widow'' is a collection of short fiction by John Cheever, published by Harper and Row in 1964. These sixteen works were first published individually in ''The New Yorker''.Bailey, 2009 p. 1026-1027 The works also appea ...
The Stories of John Cheever
''The Stories of John Cheever'' is a 1978 short story collection by American author John Cheever. It contains some of his most famous stories, including "The Enormous Radio", "Goodbye, My Brother", "The Country Husband", " The Five-Forty-Eight" ...
* ''The Letters of John Cheever'', edited by Benjamin Cheever (1988)
* ''The Journals of John Cheever'' (1991)
* ''Collected Stories & Other Writings'' (
Library of America
The Library of America (LOA) is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature. Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, the LOA has published over 300 volumes by authors rang ...