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John Cheever

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John Cheever


Born
in Quincy, Massachusetts, The United States
May 27, 1912

Died
June 18, 1982

Genre
Literature & Fiction, Short Stories, Gay & Lesbian

Influences
Francis Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Chekov, Proust ...more


John Cheever was an American novelist and short story writer, sometimes called "the Chekhov of the suburbs" or "the Ovid of Ossining." His fiction is mostly set in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the suburbs of Westchester, New York, and old New England villages based on various South Shore towns around Quincy, Massachusetts, where he was born.

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, characterized by abiding cult ...more

Combine Editions

Average rating: 3.95 · 57,632 ratings · 5,045 reviews · 315 distinct works • Similar authors
The Stories of John Cheever
4.26 avg rating — 15,669 ratings — published 1978
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Falconer
3.64 avg rating — 8,768 ratings — published 1977 — 98 editions
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The Wapshot Chronicle
3.76 avg rating — 7,536 ratings — published 1957 — 137 editions
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The Swimmer
4.03 avg rating — 5,483 ratings — published 1964 — 2 editions
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Bullet Park
3.75 avg rating — 3,087 ratings — published 1967 — 86 editions
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Oh What a Paradise It Seems
3.47 avg rating — 1,778 ratings — published 1982 — 64 editions
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The Wapshot Scandal
3.74 avg rating — 958 ratings — published 1964 — 72 editions
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The Journals of John Cheever
4.20 avg rating — 833 ratings — published 1990 — 45 editions
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The Enormous Radio
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 854 ratings — published 1947 — 16 editions
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Collected Stories and Other...
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4.33 avg rating — 462 ratings — 7 editions
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More books by John Cheever…
Quotes by John Cheever  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“I've been homesick for countries I've never been, and longed to be where I couldn't be.”
― John Cheever
3585 likes
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“I can’t write without a reader. It’s precisely like a kiss—you can’t do it alone.”
― John Cheever
tags: readers-and-writers
1861 likes
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“Fiction is art and art is the triumph over chaos… to celebrate a world that lies spread out around us like a bewildering and stupendous dream.”
― John Cheever
tags: books, fiction, inspirational, on-fiction, writing
1268 likes
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Polls

1st Quarter 2025 Long Reads Classics

Lost Illusions by Honoré de Balzac, 1843, 656 pages
 
  47 votes, 23.7%

The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu, 1000, 1182 pages
 
  47 votes, 23.7%

Man and Wife by Wilkie Collins, 1870, 688 pages
 
  29 votes, 14.6%

 
  27 votes, 13.6%

Lincoln by Gore Vidal, 1984, 672 pages
 
  24 votes, 12.1%

 
  21 votes, 10.6%

 
  3 votes, 1.5%

198 total votes
More...

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