''The Way Some People Live'' is a collection of 30 works of short fiction by

John Cheever John William Cheever (May 27, 1912 – June 18, 1982) was an American short story writer and novelist. He is sometimes called "the Chekhov of the suburbs". His fiction is mostly set in the Upper East Side of Manhattan; the Westchester suburbs; ...

, published in 1943 by

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 ...

. The stories in this edition, represents most of Cheever's literary output written in his twenties. While Cheever resisted reissuing these works in a collection, a number of the stories whose copyrights have elapsed were issued 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 ...

in ''Fall River and Other Collection Stories'' (1994).

Stories

The thirty works of short fiction included in ''The Way Some People Live'' were originally published individually in literary journals, among them ''

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 ...

'', ''

The Yale Review ''The Yale Review'' is the oldest literary journal in the United States. It is published by Johns Hopkins University Press. It was founded in 1819 as ''The Christian Spectator'' to support Evangelicalism. Over time it began to publish more on hi ...

'' and '' Story''.:

Publishing background

The thirty short stories selected for publication in ''The Way Some People Live'' are a sampling of the more than 40 short stories Cheever wrote between 1930 and 1943. These depression-era works appeared in a number of literary journals, including ''

Collier's ''Collier's'' was an American general interest magazine founded in 1888 by Peter Fenelon Collier. It was launched as ''Collier's Once a Week'', then renamed in 1895 as ''Collier's Weekly: An Illustrated Journal'', shortened in 1905 to ''Collie ...

'', ''

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 ...

'', ''

'', '' Story'' and ''

''. The volume was published in 1943 by

under the auspices of its co-founder Bennett Cerf, while Cheever was serving in a US infantry unit. When ''The Way Some People Live'' appeared in print, it came to the attention of his superior officers, and Cheever, a private first class, was transferred to the Signal Corps 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 ...

, to write "scripts for antifascist propaganda films." Cheever's former combat unit, were deployed to

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

and later to European theater, suffering extremely high casualty rates. Biographer Blake Bailey reports the volume was "published in a first printing of 2,750 copies, ''The Way Some People Live'' sold just under 2000 copies at full price." Cheever persistently resisted efforts to reissue selections from The Way Some People Live in subsequent collections of his work, describing these early efforts as "embarrassingly immature." Despite Cheever's aversion to these stories, biographer Patrick Meanor considers several of the works "masterpieces."

Reception

''The Way Some People Live'' received measured approval among critics upon its release. The '' Saturday Review''s Struthers Burt recognized Cheever as a rising literary talent, while Weldon Kees in ''

'' cautioned the author to avoid formulaic writing which a number of critics deemed typical of The New Yorker short fiction writers.

Critical assessment

Biographer Patrick Meanor comments on the style, subject matter and themes that characterize these "vignettes" comprising ''The Way Some People Live''.: Biographer Lynne Waldeland considers ''The Way Some People Live'' "a respectable volume for a writer's first collected fiction hatwould soon be overshadowed by the stories which were published in his next book, ''

The Enormous Radio and Other Stories ''The Enormous Radio and Other Stories'' is a collection of short fiction by John Cheever published in 1953 by Funk and Wagnalls. All fourteen stories were first published individually in ''The New Yorker''. These works are included in The Stori ...

''.(1953)."Waldeland, 1979 p. 25

Footnotes

Sources

* Bailey, Blake. 2009 (1). Notes on Text in ''John Cheever: Collected Stories and Other Writing.''

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 rangi ...

. Pp. 1025-1028 * Bailey, Blake. 2009 (2). ''Cheever: A Life''.

Alfred A. 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 ...

, New York. 770 pp. *O'Hara, James E. 1989. ''John Cheever: A Study of the Short Fiction.'' Twayne Publishers, Boston Massachusetts. Twayne Studies in Short Fiction no 9. *Meanor, Patrick. 1995. ''John Cheever Revisited.'' Twayne Publishers, New York. *Waldeland, Lynne. 1979. ''John Cheever''. Twayne Publishers, G. K. Hall & Company, Boston, Massachusetts. {{DEFAULTSORT:Way Some People Live 1943 short story collections American short story collections Short story collections by John Cheever Random House books