Home Before Dark (Contemporary Classics

by Susan Cheever

In Home Before Dark, Susan Cheever, daughter of the famously talented writer John Cheever, uses previously unpublished letters, journals, and her own precious memories to create a candid and insightful tribute to her father. While producing some of the most beloved and celebrated American literature of this century, John Cheever wrestled with personal demons that deeply affected his family life as well as his career. In this poignant memoir of a man driven by boundless genius and ambition, Susan Cheever writes with heartwrenching honesty of family life with the father, the writer, and the remarkable man she loved.

Genres: Memoir, Biography, Nonfiction, Biography Memoir, New York

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

Reviews

[Quo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Susan Cheever's 1984 excellent biographical sketch of her father, Home Before Dark is a book I have read more than once, calling on it from time to time but particularly when I am in the midst of reading The Stories of John Cheever. As much as I enjoy reading Cheever's short stories, Home Before Dark seems to enhance my appreciation of John Cheever.


Biographies come in many flavors but Susan Cheever's book strikes an excellent balance between an examination of a gifted writer and an expose' by a member of John Cheever's own family who is herself a writer. The biography is full of interesting details, some drawn from John Cheever's journals but many simply observations culled from a lifetime of personal experiences with the author as father & writer in almost equal measure.

Among the stories within this book that I find particularly fetching is the one about a young John Cheever attempting to fit in with the young executives in the Manhattan apartment building where the family lived early on, with John "dressing for success" with the other men each morning but riding the elevator down to the basement of the apartment building, stripping down to his undershorts & then setting up camp as it were near a boiler with a typewriter on a card table, while toiling away at his craft. Then in the late afternoon, like a shift worker, the author would once again don suit & tie and ride the elevator back up to his apartment.

Perhaps, in this fashion, Cheever conceived of material for his early short story, "The Enormous Radio", set in just such a Manhattan building & with the new but erratic radio broadcasting the constant squabbles & many inadequacies of his fellow apartment dwellers.

John Cheever may have been known as "The Bard of Ossining" but many of his early stories are similarly set in Manhattan & he liked to share anecdotes & stories about his intersections with E.E.Cummings, Wallace Shawn, Malcolm Cowley, John Updike & others.


With reference to Ossining & the New York suburbs, Susan Cheever comments that in the 1950s, "the suburbs of New York were a homogeneous & extended community held together by common interests: children, sports, adultery & lots of social drinking. It was a time engendered by the winning of the war & destroyed by the upheavals of the 1960s."

There is considerable detail about all of the listed common activities that apparently held the suburbanites of this era together, with the social drinking an endemic failing & not just for the likes of John Cheever, in search of his next story, while cataloguing his neighbors' longings & uncertainties in the process.

Physically, John Cheever was a relatively small man but he always had a sense of style & decorum, a quality that his daughter manages to capture and which John Cheever took pains to embed into his many stories.

The heavy drinking led to John Cheever's downfall but his eventual confrontation with this weakness led to his final period of authorial success, with the publication of Falconer and the collected short stories, both of which gained Cheever many awards, substantial wealth and the sort of recognition that he had long been in quest of. What I enjoyed most is Susan Cheever's analysis of the several passions that drove & sometimes almost consumed her father, traveling among them:

My father traveled because he could not stay at home, like Hammer in Bullet Park, to escape that existential dread for which the best antidote was his work. Travel was always interesting & the trips we took as a family were always fun because of the pleasure my father took in playing the role of the provider & interpreter of experience.


But I think my father was also looking for something more spiritual; a confirmation of his own belief in the importance of transcendence & the vitality of the soul.

Perhaps, he expected that some landscape encountered at the turn of the road high up in the mountains near Turkey, or some peasant's face as he stood in the fields & watched the car go by, or some Italian princess floating through her drawing rooms, would provide a crucial moment of enlightenment for him--a turn of the key.

This passage & many others in Home Before Dark serve to capture with considerable sensitivity both a father & a talented writer. Late in life, John Cheever not only conquered his addiction to alcohol but also stopped smoking, having smoked 2 packs of cigarettes a day for most of his adult life.

The author also ceased his dependency on Valium, Librium & other mood-enhancing drugs, while leaving the pills in the medicine cabinet. Tucked into my copy of Home Before Dark I noticed a clipping from The New Yorker, dated December 23-30, 1996 in which Susan Cheever comments:

It's certainly true that my father's novels & stories are redolent with romantic images of the perfect Martini and the ideal adultery but those stories are fiction--images created by a man who never found either. Anyone who reads my father's journals can see that his romanticism was a respite from despair, his humor grounded in debilitating pain.

There are 16 pages of photographs of John Cheever & his family, including several taken at Yaddo, the retreat for artists in Saratoga Springs, New York, a place the author savored & where he spent quite a bit of time.

*The 1st photo image within my review is of Susan Cheever, while the 2nd is of her father John & the 3rd are the Susan & John together.

[Brenda Sorrels · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a biographical Memoir of the writer John Cheever by his daughter Susan. The book was down to earth, painful at times in it's honesty and candor. Susan Cheever writes about her life and her relationship with her father and in doing so we are treated to a portrait of this great artist - all of it is here, the good, the bad and the ugly. I read this book as a compliment to another biography on Cheever that I am reading and I found Susan's personal details added to the richness of John Cheever's character. By knowing him so well, it is easy to love him for what he was - a brilliant, complicated man, a bi-sexual alcoholic, whose personal demons raged throughout his life much at the expense of his family. Though mainly known as a short story writer for the New Yorker, Cheever won almost every literary prize available including the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. It was not easy being the eldest child of such a disparate man. In laying out her father's life so honestly, Susan Cheever is able to understand him and ultimately forgive him. Families are complicated and the Cheever family was no exception, but Susan Cheever rises to the occasion and turns out a story of mutual respect by a daughter for her father. I would definitely recommend this book for fans of John Cheever and anyone seeking to know more about his life.

[Bonnie Kassel]

I couldn't possibly say why it's taken all these years for me to read Home Before Dark published in 1984, but now that I have, I eagerly look forward to reading Susan Cheever's more recent books. Home before dark is a rich memoir of a girl growing up with a famous father, but for me not so different than with any highly successful parent and the issues it raises. As the author says, "The secret to success is that it doesn't change anything," and there are the same painful relationships and family secrets many children deal with. What makes this book different is that her father WAS John Cheever, so that the gossip, events and cast of characters become particularly fascinating. And the author has inherited her fathers talent. Alternating between exquisitely written letters by her dad and pages of her own rich prose, the author is smart and funny and startling honest. Home Before Dark is a joy to read.

[mia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really enjoyed but I hope my child never ever feels inclined to write a memoir about me

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actually 4.5 stars! An intelligent, talented daughter recalls her brilliant, but flawed father, in an unflinching, but loving memoir. Loved it!

[Peter Burton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A memoir of an important but ,I think,now almost forgotten writer.His daughter writes honestly and easily about her father.It’s easy to read and compelling dealing with his life,warts and all,and his writing.It’s well worth a read if you are interested in modern American writers and have read one of his novels or short stories.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm going to review When the Men All Wore Hats, the second study of her father forthcoming, so I took an evening catching up with this 1984 memoir. Susan Cheever began it as her father Jobn was dying of cancer in 1981. As expected, it's a mixture of candor and tact, respect and pain, as she delves into his sense of never quite belonging to the patrician New England-New York smart-set he limned.

For he was always left out, and made more like $15k most of the time between the 1930s and mid-60s for the New Yorker. His famous stories generally appeared before the success of The Swimmer in a Burt Lancaster film then, and he didn't publish many in the New Yorker after that. And following his first novel The Wapshot Chronicle, the subsequent longer narratives didn't wow the critics. His dogged alcoholism had been crippling, literally, and his "otherness" perhaps due to his drinking may have impaired his latter years of sobriety. Also in the final third of his life, his acknowledged bisexuality complicated his guilt. Nowadays, despite his Library of America canonization, John appears to already have been relegated, along with his contemporary rivals or friends Bellow, Roth, Updike, and Malamud, to a "dead white male" shelf although once taught frequently and included in anthologies and courses. (My students liked to discuss a one-time standby, "The Five-Forty-Eight."

Susan juxtaposes her own growing up in the difficult tension of peripatetic moves in the East Coast and Italy, the bickering between her headstrong parents, and her own challenges as she decided to continue the paternal career herself. It lumbers about because of her working out her thoughts at what was obviously an uneasy time in the aftermath of her father's passing, and isn't as polished as I'd have expected. Furthermore, she barely acknowledges the literary production and mass-market impact of John's impressive oeuvre. Which I presume will be rectified four decades later, next spring.

[Ann Foster · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been a John Cheever fan since I read his first novel. I grew up in the midwest and in the south, met my husband when we were students at the University of Florida. After he graduated we got married and lived in Texas where our children were born. Reading John Cheever's narratives about New York, New England and the very different lives and pursuits of his characters was a glimpse into a world far different from mine. We had four sons under the age of five. We had friends but did not drink martinis and look out on suburban laws as we gossiped and flirted with each other's spouses. John Cheever not only created a world very different from mine but his language was witty and well crafted. I loved his books. His daughter Susan, also a writer, wrote this memoir shortly after his death in the 1980's. For me it was a time travel back to the world John Cheever created and a look inside the world he and and his family lived during that time. I liked this book a lot. Others may find it dated and of less interest, but Susan Cheever generously shares her memories of her gifted father through good times and bad.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a heartfelt, literary memoir of a father by his daughter. I found the later half of the book particularly affecting and unputdownable. I’ve read several of Susan Cheever’s books now (the memoirs, not the purely nonfictional) and this one is by far the most illuminating, moving and authentic. This is very much a portrait of a literary life - of John Cheever - but it is more intimate look than one would normally have, I think. Cheever shows the reader that what was in the short stories of John Cheever was also fully present in the man that was her father: the full landscape of the human heart.

[Natalie Kral · Rating 4 out of 5]

I spent my time reading this book wavering between rooting for John and protesting against his success. Written by his daughter, this book offers such an intimate look into his life, complete with bitterness stemming from his frequent perceived indifference to his family and the love she feels for him as his daughter and a fellow author.

A great read divided more by subject than by life stage. This was an easy read and has inadvertently given me a plethora of book recommendations.

[Kathy Kattenburg · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Cheever was one of the last century's greatest writers of short stories. He was also a complicated person. His lightness and his darkness were intertwined in very intricate ways.

Susan Cheever's biographical memoir of her father's life, and life with her father, is clear-eyed while conveying the love and respect they felt for each other. The book is atmospheric, just like John Cheever's own writing, and it's poignant and moving while never being sentimental or maudlin.

[Judith Squires · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actually re-read this book, after reading her marvelous "American Bloomsbury." I found the Cheevers to be one fascinating family and their brilliant, damaged and severely alcoholic father to be more complex than any literary character. I love literary biographies and memoirs, and this was an excellent one.

[Vincent Eaton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read nearly all of John Cheever's fiction, and short stories, over the years, so I picked this out of the books John Boyle left at his death as something to know. Brilliant work, his daughter Susan a supple, thoughtful writer of the telling detail. Intense, forgiving and fraught, as so many families can be.

[Mark Zadrozny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found on a friend's shelf this summer in Maine, the book reminded me of why I like reading Cheever's stories. A good sense of a difficult but transcendent writer

[Kate]

Recommended by Mary Carr in The Art of Memoir

[Amy Magram · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked John Cheever’s stories and wanted to write his biography. Mostly interesting, dragged in places.

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A super interesting read about a super dysfunctional family.

[Nola · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written book.

[Mary · Rating 2 out of 5]

1985.

[A Ojala · Rating 3 out of 5]

"He was scornful of other people's well-appointed studies and often noted, with some justification, that the elegance of their surroundings did not seem to help their writing."

[Dean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Susan Cheever, herself a novelist, is the daughter of the late short story writer and novelist John Cheever. Her father was, shall we say, a difficult man. "Home Before Dark" begins more as a memoir of her own childhood: she is the most important character. I thought we were headed for a 3 star review but as the book progressed, her father increasingly took center stage, and Susan's stories and insights added a star. Worth a read. Compare "Famous Father Girl" by Jamie Bernstein, daughter of Leonard.

[N. Moss · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Cheevers were neighbors of ours, so I grew up in "Cheever" country. We'd see him on the road pushing his bike to the egg place on Teatown Road, and he even came to the house once. But we knew him more through his writing (which I always revered, and still do) and all of the subsequent scandal and revelations (by himself and others). I loved this book, and felt that Susan Cheever threaded a very fine needle. She clearly loved and adored her father, a complicated thing surely for the child of an alcoholic who is so at war with his own sexuality, so hidden and cloaked and talented. But she manages to paint a portrait that is intimate without being (or at any rate revealing) a personal axe to grind. It's a beautiful book, really, about my childhood and childhood haunts, about a man who so captured the time and place of my early years, and about a man who had a unique literary voice and vision.

[Harley · Rating 5 out of 5]

No writer could ask for a better biography from a child. This is a very compassionate, kind, loving and gentle telling of a father's story, including his failings such as bisexuality, alcoholism and adultery. The book is full of touching memories. The last chapter on the dying of her father is very compassionate and moving. It brought tears to my eyes. When the people die, the living often wish they had done something different and they are filled with regret. Mary, John's wife, regretted going out to get the mail and lingering to look at her garden. When she came back, she found John on the floor with a broken leg. He died a few days later. My mother always regretted the last words she spoke in anger to my father the day he died.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book took me forever to read, partly because I read it in fits and starts while reading other books and magazines (and being too busy with other things to read much as well), but partly because it just didn't hold my interest. I picked it up in a used-book exchange, and, needing to read a biography for the 2016 Read Harder Challenge, read it despite never reading any of John Cheever's works nor knowing anything about his life. It did appeal to me since it was written by his daughter, and, as I also had an accomplished father, this aspect of the book spoke to me, but overall I found myself often bored with it. I am sure it has much meaning to those who admired Cheever or who knew the family, but being outside that circle, I found it less engaging than most of what I read.

[Marian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Susan Cheever is the daughter of John Cheever, award winning novelists & short story writer. Although her book touches on the facts of John Cheever's life, it is more about growing up with a father who is not only a literary genius, but a man plagued by depression, problems with alcohol & the feeling that he has not lived up to some obscure standard that "the men of his family" are supposed to reach. Susan Cheever is a very good writer on her own & she is able to bring new insights about living with a loving, talented father. The most important impression I have from this book is the respect she has for her father, both as a father & a famous writer.

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn't surprised that this hybrid memoir/bio by Susan Cheever of her father is well written, but I was surprised that she didn't provide more trenchant scenes the sometime difficult relationship she had with her father, as well as the complex marriage he had. There is more telling than showing, but the telling is elegiac and poetic. She holds back, obviously to spare her family (especially her mother who was still alive when it was written), but it leaves the reader frustratingly in the dark, groping. It's ultimately a tribute to her father, but with many missing pieces.

[Joe Mossa · Rating 3 out of 5]

this guy drank more or as much as faulkner. did he write while drinking ? who knows ? i have THE WAPSHOT SCANDAL in my collection and will read it again. i wish to read his short stories and susan s book,too. i have read many memiors lately and after awhile they all run together in my head. cheever s determination,perseverance, and dedication to his art of writing are inspirational. like faulkner,steinbeck,hemingway they all loved to write and work very hard at it.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Following, through this book, the chronology of John Cheever's ups and downs
as an author, and as a man, makes reading his stories interesting in ways they
would not otherwise be. I greatly admire Susan Cheever for taking on this subject
and writing so eloquently and affectionately about her difficult, talented, suffering,
life-loving father.

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. I particularly enjoyed the author's memories of family life in suburban New York, (Scarborough and Ossining), in the 1950s and 60s. The section of the book devoted to her father's time in rehab in 1975 and the transformative affect that it had on the remainder of his life was also well done.

[Paula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating portrait of Pulitzer Prize-winner John Cheever and his struggle with alcoholism, homosexuality, and depression - all as he was living out his "normal" life as a suburban writer in America. By his daughter, Susie.