The Brigadier and the Golf Widow

by John Cheever

This new collection of sixteen stories reveals John Cheever's expertness employed with greater power to even more impressive effect than heretofore.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, American

275 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1964

About the author

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 cultural traditions and a profound sense of community, as opposed to the alienating nomadism of modern suburbia.

Reviews

[Connie G · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Brigadier and the Golf Widow" is a book of sixteen short stories that were first published in "The New Yorker." Most of the stories are set in upper-middle-class suburban New York, but a few are located in Italy where Cheever's family spent some time living in Rome.

The title story is a look at troubled marriages and suburbia told with humor. The inclusion of a bomb shelter gave it a 1960s vibe.

"The Swimmer is Cheever's most famous story in the collection with its surreal journey. The protagonist swims across town visiting a series of swimming pools, as we learn about his failing marriage and other problems in his life.

This is an entertaining collection of Cheever's stories from the 1950s and 1960s that have aged well. I reviewed each story separately in other posts.

List of Stories with date of publication in "The New Yorker":

"The Chaste Clarissa" (June 14, 1952)
"Just One More Time" (October 8, 1955)
"The Bella Lingua" (March 1, 1958)
"The Music Teacher" (November 21, 1959)
"A Woman Without a Country" (December 12, 1959)
"Clementina" (May 7, 1960)
"The Seaside Houses" (July 29, 1961)
"The Angel of the Bridge" (October 21, 1961)
"The Brigadier and the Golf Widow" (November 11, 1961)
"A Vision of the World" (September 29, 1962)
"Reunion" (October 27, 1962)
"Metamorphoses" (March 2, 1963)
"An Educated American Woman" (November 2, 1963)
"The Ocean" (August 1, 1964)
"Marito in Città" (July 4, 1964)
"The Swimmer" (July 18, 1964)

[Ania (double.bookspresso) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ciężko powiedzieć, coś pomiędzy konsternacją a oburzeniem. Jeśli jednak rzeczywiście jest to obraz, nawet w krzywym zwierciadle, Amerykanów lat 70., to... nie najlepiej z nimi 😅
---
Hard to decide, sth between confusion and anger... but if any of this is true about American society in 70s, sorry for them 😅

[Kansas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uno de esos cuentos antológicos que transcurren en Shady Hill, esa urbanización cheeveriana ficticia donde las amas de casas cocina, cotillean y lloran por los rincones y ellos, ejecutivos bebedores soñando con una doble vida en medio de un consumismo exacerbado que en ningún momento satisface sus vidas. El protagonista de esta novela construyó un refugio antiatómico en el jardin de su casa, y este refugio es una especie de simbolo de prosperidad que todos desean o de fracaso, también podriamos decir una vez que la historia se va desenmascarando. Charlie Pastern el protagonista, es otro de esos hombres patéticos, pura apariencia y pura pompa de jabón vacia. Una maravilla de historia.

"Pero ¿quién era ella? ¿Quién se creia que era para hacerle una cosa así? No era más que una ama de casa con su soledad a cuestas, ni más ni menos":

[Reyna Eisenstark · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic book of stories, each one perfect in its own way. They feel both familiar and subversive, sometimes wickedly funny, sometimes sad, sometimes surreal, sometimes all at once. I had read "The Swimmer" years ago in a collection and it stayed with me for a long time. When I reread it, I couldn't believe how bleak it was, how I had forgotten that. Cheever is really just a master of the short story, something that is sadly not as appreciated now as it was. The perfect punch of an ending is what I love about short stories in general and he delivers every time.

[Eeshan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exquisitely constructed. It took me thirty minutes to read and I spent an hour afterwards rereading and annotating. I still don’t feel comfortable saying I have any kind of final understanding of it. I still don’t get the necessity of the third person limited that in actuality is a third person omniscient. I understand there is symmetry between the first and last paragraphs and that the condensed information and polysyndetons all served to exemplify the “velocity” of “these times”. Regardless, the fact that the neighbor narrating seems to understand intimately every thought and feeling Charlie and his wife have still does not make sense to me.

I caught seven motifs/symbols being used here: ax grinding (I loved the repurposing of this idiom to encapsulate the character of the golf widow), leaves/trees, childishness, shoulders, waste, performance, and gardens (which stems from the same place as leaves thematically). I also caught three refrains. The “I’ve never done this before” and maid reporting on Charlie giving away his key paragraphs revolved so delicately around the repetition. There is a precision of language, wonderful use of digression, ellipsis, and double entendre, and a profusion of humour. Of course, there’s Cheever’s distinctive use of metaphor pivoting on “of” (“kingdom of weeds and cinders”). I was surprised with the nimbleness of his listmaking, especially the fusing of the no-man’s-land and the city in the paragraph about being stood up.

There are connections to both “Torch Song” and “The Country Husband”. In “Torch Song” there’s a black widow while here there is a woman to whom a soul is sold. The garage scene and scene where Charlie imagines himself playing golf at night seem to be almost the same as the garage scene and the scene where Francis imagines himself skiing over the Alps at night in “The Country Husband”.

[Vintagebooklvr · Rating 2 out of 5]

He writes about the darker sides of suburbia, particularly post WWII. One sentence hints at something here much darker than other stories but the reader doesn't know just how guilty the characters are. Also, one of the few stories I've ever had where a bomb shelter is involved.

[mark propp · Rating 5 out of 5]

never do anything.
no one ever seems to learn this lesson.
i know it's true, yet i continue to try things. funny old world.

very good story. one of the best in this collection, perhaps.

[Descending Angel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highlights ~ "The Music Teacher" " The Angel on the Bridge " "The Brigadier and the Golf Widow" "Metamorphoses" "The Ocean" and "The Swimmer".

[Classic reverie · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Cheever's "The Brigadier and the Golf Widow" is another troubled marriage short story with a bomb shelter in the mix. A completely depressing as his usual and I feel like shaking these characters up to prevent their future troubles.

Story in short- Charlie collects for his wife's charity and takes more.


"Mrs. Pastern undertook the work of going from house to house with the thoughtless resignation of an honest and traditional laborer. It was her destiny; it was her life. Her mother had done it before her, and even her old grandmother had collected money for smallpox and unwed mothers. Mrs. Pastern had telephoned most of her neighbors in advance, and most of them were ready for her. She experienced none of the suspense of some poor stranger selling encyclopedias. Here and there she stayed to visit and drink a glass of sherry. The contributions were ahead of what she had got the previous year, and while the money, of course, was not hers, it excited her to stuff her kit with big checks. She stopped at the Surcliffes’ after dusk, and had a Scotch and soda. She stayed too late, and when she left it was dark and time to go home and cook supper for her husband. “I got a hundred and sixty dollars for the hepatitis fund,” she said excitedly when he walked in."


❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌
The narrator tells about some neighbors and why they no longer live there. Charlie collects for his wife's charity from newer neighbors and though the trouble starts before, it is made worse after this event. Mr. Pastern goes to the house and he soon finds a lonely looking woman and an affair starts. Charlie feels he needs Mrs. Flannagan, not that she is anything special but this is one of his many affairs he has had. He tells her that he can no longer buy his mistress things and she finally gets him to give her his bomb shelter key, after a promise that he keeps. Mrs. Pastern finds out that Mrs. Flannagan has a key and that her husband gave it to her. She has known about his affairs and this is the last straw, for she would never thought he would stoop so low. It is found out later that he is in jail for embezzlement and their children had to quit college and they are broke, while Charlie is in jail. Mrs. Flannagan has lost too and no longer lives in her home but wanders back.

"The remarks she made about the sufferings of a lonely woman seemed so broad at first that he didn’t know what to make of them, but after the sixth drink he put his arm around her and suggested that they go upstairs and look for her checkbook there. “I’ve never done this before,” she said later, when he was arranging himself to leave. Her voice shook with feeling, and he thought it lovely. He didn’t doubt her truthfulness, although he had heard the words a hundred times. “I’ve never done this before,” they always said, shaking their dresses down over their white shoulders. “I’ve never done this before,” they always said, waiting for the elevator in the hotel corridor. “I’ve never done this before,” they always said, pouring another whiskey. “I’ve never done this before,” they always said, putting on their stockings. On ships at sea, on railroad trains, in summer hotels with mountain views, they always said, “I’ve never done this before.”

"Then, getting back into bed, he thought unashamedly of Mrs. Flannagan, planning where they would next meet and what they would do. There are, he thought, so few true means of forgetfulness in this life that why should he shun the medicine even when the medicine seemed, as it did, a little crude?"

"He met Mrs. Flannagan for lunch in the city, and they spent the afternoon together. Leaving the hotel, Mrs. Flannagan stopped at a display of perfume."

"She was always late, and at half past one he ordered a second drink. At a quarter to two, he saw his waiter whispering to another waiter—whispering, laughing, and nodding his head in Charlie’s direction. It was his first intimation of the chance that she might stand him up. But who was she—who did she think she was that she could do this to him? She was nothing but a lonely housewife; she was nothing but that. At two, he ordered his lunch. He was crushed. What had his emotional life been these
last years but a series of sometimes shabby one-night stands, but without them his life would be unendurable."

“Please tell me.” “Promise.” “I promise.” “I want,” she said, “a key to your bomb shelter.” The demand struck at him like a sledge-hammer blow, and suddenly he felt in all his parts the enormous weight of chagrin. All his gentle speculations on her person—the mill-town girl ruling her chickens-backfired bitterly. This must have been on her mind from the beginning, when she first lit the fire, lost her checkbook, and gave him a drink."

“This is Beatrice, Mrs. Pastern,” she said, “and there is something I think you ought to know. As you know, I’m not a gossip. I’m not like that Adele, who goes around from lady to lady telling that the So-and-Sos aren’t sleeping together, and that So-and-So had six empty whiskey bottles in his wastebaskets, and that nobody came to So-and-So’s cocktail party. I’m not like that Adele. I’m not a gossip, and you know that, Mrs. Pastern. But there is something I think you ought to know. I worked for Mrs. Flannagan today, and she showed me a key, and she said it was a key to your bomb shelter, and that your husband gave it to her. I don’t know whether it was the truth or not, but I thought you ought to know.” “Thank you, Beatrice.” He had dragged her good name through a hundred escapades, debauched her excellence, and thrown away her love, but she had never imagined that he would betray her in their plans for the end of the world."

"And then she remembered the night—the night of judgment—when they had agreed to let Aunt Ida and Uncle Ralph burn, when she had sacrificed her three-year-old niece and he his five-year-old nephew; when they had conspired like murderers and had decided to deny mercy even to his old mother."

“Mrs. Flannagan,” she said, “has a key to our shelter, and you gave it to her.” He went back out through the rain to the garage and jammed his fingers in the door. In haste and rage he stalled the car, and, waiting for the carburetor to drain, was faced, in the headlights, with the backstage of his wasteful domestic life which had accumulated in the garage. Here was a fortune in broken garden furniture and power tools. When the car started, he slammed out of his driveway and passed a red light at the first intersection, where, for a moment, his life hung by a thread. He didn’t care. Slamming up the hill, he clutched the wheel as if he already had his hands on her plump and silly neck. It was his children’s honor and peace of mind that she had damaged. It was his children, his beloved children, that she had harmed."

"When he opened the bathroom door, he found himself face to face with an absolutely naked stranger. He shut the door, and then there was that nearly metronomic stillness that precedes a howling confrontation. It was she who broke the silence. “I do not know who he is, and I have been trying to make him go away.... I know what you are
thinking, and I do not care. It is my house, after all, and I did not invite you into it, and I do not have to explain everything that goes on to you.” “Get away from me,” he said. “Get away from me or I’ll break your neck.”

“Dear Jesus, when will it ever end?” “I’ve been waiting for you to say that,” said Mrs. Pastern quietly, coming in from the pantry. “I’ve been waiting nearly three months now to hear just that. I first began to worry when I saw that you’d sold your cuff links and your studs. I wondered what was the matter then. Then, when you signed the contract for the shelter without a penny to pay for it, I began to see your plan. You want the world to end, don’t you? Don’t you, Charlie, don’t you? I’ve known it all along, but I couldn’t admit it to myself, it seemed so ruthless—but then one learns something new every day.” She walked past him into the hallway and started up the stairs. “There’s a hamburger in the frying pan,” she said, “and some potatoes in the oven. If you want a green vegetable, you can heat up the leftover broccoli. I’m going to telephone the children.”

“There have been so many changes in the last six weeks,” she wrote, “that I hardly know where to begin. First, the Pasterns are gone and I mean gone. He’s in the county jail serving a two-year sentence for grand larceny. Sally’s left college and is working at Macy’s, and the boy’s still looking for a job, I hear. He’s living with his mother somewhere in the Bronx. Someone said they were on home relief. It seems that Charlie ran through all of that money his mother left him about a year ago and they were just living on credit. The bank took everything and they moved to a motel in Tansford."

"She was not very warmly dressed and she had on high heels and no rubbers. Well, she walked up the street and she walked right across the Pasterns’ lawn, I meant what used to be the Pasterns’ lawn, to their bomb shelter and just stood there looking at it. I don’t know what in the world she was thinking of but the shelter looks a little like a tomb, you know, and she looked like a mourner standing there with the snow falling on her head and shoulders and it made me sad to think she hardly knew the Pasterns. Then Mrs. Willoughby telephoned me and said there was this strange woman standing in front of her bomb shelter and did I know who it was and I said that I did, that it was Mrs. Flannagan who used to live up on the hill, and then she asked what I thought she should do and I said the only thing to do I guessed was to send her away. So then Mrs. Willoughby sent her maid down and I saw the maid telling Mrs. Flannagan to go away and then in a little while Mrs. Flannagan walked back through the snow to the station.”

[Ida · Rating 4 out of 5]

i hear hes got some brother issues so i spent the whole time trying to figure out how drunk he was when he wrote the story and which character was supposed to be his brother. the movie the swimmer is great so it was nice to imagine burt lancaster. always nice to imagine burt.

[David Partikian · Rating 5 out of 5]

In researching the life and works of the almost completely forgotten mariner author Calvin Kentfield (1924-1975), about the only documentable information I could find on him was from Blake Bailey’s biography of the American short story master John Cheever, Cheever: A Life since the two alcoholics had some sort of tryst involving oral sex while in Hollywood during the early 60’s, leading to a period of self-loathing in John Cheever’s life and a year-long bout with agoraphobia. Like most literate Americans, I had only read the ubiquitous tome of the almost complete Cheever short stories, a.k.a. “the red book,” published in the late 70’s, a collection which appeared a few years before Cheever’s dissolute death and that won the National Book Award. I remembered not quite identifying with this “Chekhov of Suburbia,” excepting the phenomenal tale The Swimmer, which was turned into a film starring Burt Lancaster shortly after its appearance in the New Yorker caught the attention of the highly underrated filmmakers Frank and Eleanor Perry—a buried classic that I highly recommend one see either before or after reading the story. Thus, it was time for me, almost forty years after slogging through parts of Cheever’s “red book,” to reevaluate the much lauded author mostly known for his short stories, a genre that has fallen into disfavor in the current era of detached attention spans where Instagram trumps (pardon that word) a well-crafted short story of the type that was a staple of many literate Americans evening entertainment or edification from the 40’s-70’s.

It was easy for me to hone in on one of the numerous original anthologies of Cheever short stories published as soon as there were enough tales published in periodicals to warrant a reprinting in book form, The Brigadier and the Golf Widow (1964), since it contains The Swimmer as well as three or four other of his best known tales. The collection represents Cheever at the height of his artistic abilities and is not the unwieldy intimidating tome that “the red book” is. Just try to find a hardbound copy of “the red book” from the 80’s that won’t crack at the bindings with a thorough read!

Most of the themes that are representative of Cheever are present in The Brigadier and the Golf Widow: A condemnation of Narcissism, The Swimmer; adultery and failed marriages, the title tale as well as The Seaside Houses and The Ocean; philandering, tales too numerous to cite; mental illness, The Angel of the Bridge; the alienation and seclusion of most expatriates (others thrive since Cheever writes quite a bit about being an ex-pat in Italy), The Bell Lingua, Clementina and A Woman Without a Country. One story of his better-known stories is harder to define and is a veiled ode—at least in my opinion—to Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Music Teacher. Throughout all the stories there is a tone of sadness, dissatisfaction—both accusations against the sterile and hermetic pettiness of upscale East Coast suburban America—as well as countless examples of alcohol abuse, Mad Men era sexism, outwardly happy protagonists hiding their inner turmoil, and families who put on appearances to hide impending economic “hardship”—quotation marks for sarcasm. Those readers who come from truly humble means and who had to fight for dinner scraps may have a hard time identifying with the ennui of these East Coasters who today would be denigrated as “elite” by both the frothing Bro Left and the cult of brain-dead Republican voters.

All classifications aside, Cheever’s writing is revelatory. He was a master short story writer in an era that revered short stories. Those who only vaguely remember trying to read “the red book” almost 25 years ago should give this shorter collection another look. Several of Cheever’s tales from The Brigadier and the Golf Widow would fit well in an anthology of the best stories of the latter half of the 20th Century including—in my opinion: The Swimmer, The Bella Lingua, Metamorphoses and The Ocean. Others will swear by the other-worldly, coven-evoking eeriness of The Music Teacher.

[Sapphire Detective · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two anthologies in one day? Perish the thought. And yet, here it is--two anthologies in one day, putting me now four books ahead of my reading goal.

I started this one back in December to coincide with the film version of The Swimmer showing on TCM. At that early point, I enjoyed the stories I was reading. However, it seems as the anthology went on, my enthusiasm waned more and more. Some stories, later on, were enjoyable--enjoyable as I had found some of the early ones, at any rate--but they were fewer and farther between. Perhaps it was the freshness wearing off; or the of-the-times misogyny and casual racism. Maybe it was the pompousness of the writer slowly unveiling as the veneer chipped off, I don't know. There's a good chance I'll return to Cheever's stories at some point--the good present here was enough to entice me back--but it won't be for quite a while, I feel--long enough for him to slather the veneer back on.

The Brigadier and the Golf Widow - 3/5
The Angel of the Bridge - 5/5
An Educated American Woman - 2/5
The Swimmer - 4.5/5
Metamorphoses - 5/5
The Bella Lingua - 3/5
Clementina - 3.5/5
A Woman Without Country - 3/5
Reunion - 1/5
The Chaste Clarissa - 2.5/5
The Music Teacher - 3.5/5
The Seaside Houses - 4/5
Just One More Time - 3/5
Marito in Citta - 2/5
A Vision of the World - 2/5
The Ocean - 4/5

Overall rating: 3.2/5 (rounded down)
Favorite Story: The Angel of the Bridge/Metamorphoses
Least Favorite Story: Reunion
Would I own it/re-read it?: I may get it out again for the five stories I really liked in this collection, but I probably wouldn't own it.
TW: Sexism! Racism! Adultery! Death! Mental Illness! Attempted Murder! Deadbeat/abusive parents! I think those are the major ones.
Does the animal die?: To my recollection, none of the stories feature an animal being harmed, save for as food. There are cases of humans being attacked by animals, including in my favorite story, but not much the other way around.

[j · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stories of the troubled well-to-do, in distress on holiday and in flux in well-furnished homes. I like when Cheever becomes more psychological, and I like when he creates these unconventional and subtle ghost stories. He also excels in observation in an understated mode (one story about a young person witnessing their father's drunkenness is a masterclass in saying a lot with a little). The best stories here are magnificent, but the collection as a whole feels a bit long in the tooth. It clearly wasn't designed as a collection -- it is a compilation. You'd be best served by choosing the highlights. If you only read one, you read 'The Swimmer', a supremely haunting tale that is like nothing else I've ever encountered (the brilliance translates into Frank and Eleanor Perry's phenomenal film version). If you only read two, you read 'The Swimmer' and 'The Seaside Houses', the latter being one of those devilish left-field ghost stories. One could say that Cheever's writing, so conventionally good as to feel almost anemic (a quality further exacerbated by his choices of subjects) lacks the spark and feverishness of a less disciplined artist. But I think it is in one's best interest to learn to appreciate that which adheres to standard practice, when the practice is practiced so carefully.

[Andy Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of short stories written between 1952 and 1964 are so well crafted while reading them it seems that a time machine has transported you to 1950s suburbia with all of its customs, social rules and gender roles. The first story, Chaste Carissa details a thrice divorced philanderer's campaign to seduce a young housewife on a summer island while her husband is abroad for business. Adultery permeates throughout the stories though almost always punished. Alcohol abuse, Career dissatisfaction, and overspending are also consistent themes
The collection ends with arguably one of the best short stories ever written, The Swimmer. It can be read lightly to tell of a man swimming from pool to pool from a party to his home. But a careful reading notes the change of season during his pool hopping, the declining strength of the swimmer that makes each pool a more difficult swimmer and the cryptic comments of the various pool owners which go over the narrator's head but tell the reader that the swimmer is slowly losing stature in his community. Because this is not really a story about swimming but about a man whose alcohol use, adultery, spending and family detachment leads to such a sad ending

[MH · Rating 4 out of 5]

One reviewer compared Cheever to Fitzgerald, and that feels about right - both chronicled and constructed their era as they understood it, and for Cheever it's a late 1950s America of hollow suburbia, cocktail parties, and casual infidelity. These stories of fragile masculinity (Cheever's men are very uneasy about changing gender roles) might not always resonate in modern America (almost every story is about a financially comfortable white man, vaguely disappointed by his family, his mistress, or his copious leisure time), but Cheever is such a great writer - assured, sharp, clever, and painfully honest in his descriptions of loneliness and fear - that I found myself engaged and often deeply moved by these stories about men who have no idea how good they have it.

[Daniel Behn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cheeky but also bleak. Hopeless, 1950’s aristocrat existentialism. North American magical realism. Laugh out loud, pathetic, marvelous, masterful.

I think my grandfather liked Cheever, I’m glad I picked it up.
"Time, I thought, strips us rudely of the privileges of the bystander, and in the end that couple chatting loudly in bad French in the lobby of the Grande Bretagne turns out to be us.”

"I think of some plumber who, waked by the rain, will smile at a vision of the world in which all the drains are miraculously cleansed and free.”

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with all short story collections, there were some standouts and some misses. The first half seemed stronger to me, with stories such as An Educated American Woman, The Swimmer, and The Angel of the Bridge. Not surprisingly, given the time, there was a hue of misogyny throughout, although there were some strong female characters. The writing was reminiscent of Salinger. I love Cheever's tendency to meander with his writing. He starts with an idea and takes the reader somewhere completely unexpected that somehow reveals our shared humanity. 3.5/5

[Tom McInnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Several stories are completely superlative, and it’s never less than grimly amusing (often laugh-out-loud funny) but the cumulative effect of so many similar scenarios and so much time spent with these weak stupid men and their contemptible wives may, over almost 300 pages, inspire more ire than the immaculate and devilishly funny prose can weather.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

*Title Story Only

A look inside a fragile marriage, a theme that comes up often in Cheever’s later works. These two people live in different worlds, he occupies his as a force and she almost lives vicariously. Affairs, frustrated desires, and abject failure result from the choices made.


(#44 - Stories of John Cheever)

[Niki · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love John Cheever's short stories. Funny, smart, tragic...he's incredible.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! This book!

Cheever demonstrates he is just as much of a master of the short story as Chekov.

[Julie Waldman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Depressing view of our world - and its only

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

***4.5 stars***

[Marta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uwielbiam Cheever'a.

[julkor · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5 bardzo przyjemna fajna ksiazka do tramwaju pozdro

[JCP]

The Brigadier and the Golf Widow read by Peter Gallagher

[Marisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Favorite stories -
“The Brigadier and the Golf Widow”
“The Music Teacher”
“The Swimmer”
“The Ocean”

[Ky Thorson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wet dreams of nuclear annihilation and marital intemperance.

[Max · Rating 5 out of 5]

The America Cheever writes about is more prosperous, more melancholy, more steeped in tradition and darkness than the frenetic, youth-driven lala land today. I love that he can conjure it up.

[Sean MacGuffin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing short fiction. It takes nerve to pull off stories with such odd premises. "The Swimmer" is the best example.