Late Reviews and Latest Obsessions (Free subscription) | 10/10/2008
The Stories of John Cheever , by John Cheever, Vintage International, 2000 Like most people, prior to picking up this at-times masterful, at-times leaden collection, I had read perhaps two short stories written by John Cheever. “The Enormous Radio,” one of Cheever’s earliest, remains a popularly anthologized slice of horror dished up to high schoolers, while “The Swimmer,” one of his latest, retains...
The New York Observer (Free subscription) | 10/08/2008
Desire: Where Sex Meets Addiction By Susan Cheever Simon & Schuster, 174 pages, $23 Every so often in this thin book about “sex addiction,” the sea of psychotherapeutic gobbledygook parts and John Cheever, the author’s famous father, peeks through. He appears literally, mixing the young and heartsick Susan Cheever a gin and tonic as he nurses one of multiple daily Scotches (or later, in his belated...
Maud Newton (Free subscription) | 10/07/2008
Blake Bailey’s John Cheever biography isn’t out till next March, but an advance copy arrived in the mail a couple days ago, and I’ve enjoying the author’s skillful and generous use of excerpts from Cheever’s massive journal. The highlight so far (in that it reveals Cheever as a neurotic and at least occasional black hole [...]
ephemera (Free subscription) | 10/06/2008
Today, as I was surfing the Web, I came across an item about a woman who writes fan letters to authors. She mentioned writing to Ray Bradbury and John Cheever. And they responded. I wonder if anyone has made a...
New York Post (Free subscription) | 10/05/2008
JOHN Cheever never liked fellow writer John Updike because he felt the "Witches of Eastwick" novelist was arrogant and didn't treat him as an equal. But his bitterness boiled over when both were invited to a White House gala where Updike was giving...
New York Times (Free subscription) | 09/25/2008
The latest book by Susan Cheever, novelist, biographer and daughter of the late John Cheever, is a cautionary tome that chronicles her addiction to sex.
Law and Letters (Free subscription) | 09/04/2008
Really, a great recent discovery of mine, even though she's been writing forever and I should know better. Wait until I read the Joyce Carol Oates trilogy and that gigantic collection of John Cheever. The Stare A Mild Attack of Locusts
Anecdotal Evidence (Free subscription) | 09/01/2008
In downtown Portland, in our hotel room, I was reminded by John Cheever that for the first time in many years I have not attended a county fair. Early in The Wapshot Chronicle (1957), Coverly and his father, Leander, walk to the fair in their (imaginary) town, St. Botolph’s, Mass.: “It was a summer evening so splendid that the power it had over their senses was like the power of memory and they could...
Hyscience (Free subscription) | 08/14/2008
Greg Pollowitz calls this creepy, I call it down right sick! "My only regret is I didn't get a picture of him kissing my wife. If there's any man in the world who can kiss my wife, it's Barack Obama," said Candace's husband John Cheever, also a Punahou teacher. Ugh! Makes me want to vomit.
bookshelves of doom (Free subscription) | 08/08/2008
The New Yorker Fiction Podcast. I listened to Richard Ford read John Cheever's 'Reunion' last night. Twice.
Bookninja (Free subscription) | 07/23/2008
“How Come No One Celebrates My Alcoholism Like John Cheever’s“. You know, seminal American author John Cheever and I have a lot in common. He needed to drink a fifth of scotch before he had the courage to utter a word to another human being, and so do I. Much like Cheever, I’m completely blotto by [...]
The Onion (Free subscription) | 07/23/2008
You know, seminal American author John Cheever and I have a lot in common. He needed to drink a fifth of scotch before he had the courage to utter...
New Statesman (Free subscription) | 07/10/2008
The Collected Stories Lorrie Moore Faber & Faber, 672pp, £20 In the introduction to Collected Stories (1978), John Cheever regretted that the order of the stories was not reversed, on the grounds that "any precise documentation of one's immaturity is embarrassing". Thirty years later, Lorrie Moore has acted on the impulse that short-story writers often feel (but novelists rarely do) to distance themselves...
John Gushue . . . Dot Dot Dot (Free subscription) | 06/13/2008
"People look for morals in fiction because there has always been a confusion between fiction and philosophy." - John Cheever
Jahsonic (Free subscription) | 05/06/2008
This post is part of the cult fiction series, this issue #5 The Swimmer (1968) Frank Perry The famed John Cheever short story appeared in the New Yorker and people talked. Now there will be talk again. When you sense this man's vibrations and share his colossal hang-up . . . will you see someone you know, [...]
