Vintage Cheever

by John Cheever

In his finely wrought novels and short stories, John Cheever created men and women, young and old, suburbanites and city dwellers, all of whom, whether they reside in St. Botolphs or Bullet Park or mid-century Manhattan or some other mythic place, are all recognizable as citizens of Cheever country.
 
Vintage Cheever contains an essential selection of the master’s short stories and selections from the novels The Wapshot Chronicle , Bullet Park , Falconer and Oh What a Paradise It Seems .

Vintage Readers are a perfect introduction to some of the great modern writers, presented in attractive, affordable paperback editions.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories

208 pages, Paperback

First published February 8, 2005

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

[Sandeep · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Cheever's short stories are a bewildering mix of despair, sadness and inexplicable joy.

As I read these stories, it feels like I am peeking into the mind of someone who wrote about ordinary life like very few others.

Each story is an exploration into suburban America and the people that reside in it and filled with tales of the pain and sweetness of life.

Cheever's work is right up there with my favourite short story writers.

[Chris Timmons · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Cheever is certainly more than a bard of the suburbs. He's an immensely talented psychologist of human feeling and motive. A pleasure to read.

[Daniela Coppola · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a collection of his most famous short stories plus a few extracts from novels. 'Goodbye, my brother', 'The enormous radio', and 'The swimmer' were the best ones.

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

At an awards ceremony two months before his death, Cheever said that literature was "the salvation of the damned," the lesson of his own life surely. He said "A page of good prose remains invincible." I kept thinking about that as I read each of these perfect little stories, as I pondered each and every page of perfect prose, sentence following sentence like brilliant little jewels on a golden chain. He is the master of secrets, whether the secrets are kept from others or from the character's own self. There is such a deep pleasure to be found, for people who care about these things, in the way he constructs sentences, the word choices he makes that are just absolutely right, the feelings he weaves into the story even if it's a feeling that begins in your gut as you know something isn't quite right, and as you keep reading and the evidence builds. Yes, something isn't quite right here.

And the stories themselves, profoundly moving, unexpected, haunting. Strongly strongly recommend this little collection as a way into Cheever if you haven't read much of his work yet. Some of his best-known pieces are here, including The Swimmer which will break your heart. The excerpts from Bullet Park and Oh What a Paradise it Seems will lead you to those novels. Beautiful, beautiful.

[Deepa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first Cheever. What can I say. I missed out.
Having grown up in India, I was subject to carefully handpicked collections of short stories as part of my high school curriculum. This meant no-one who wasn't either Indian or British. Everybody should read Cheever. Early.

[Karen Kinsella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cheever just blows me away. It's not just that his stories are so evocative of place, of time. There is something about them that is like half remembering your dream from the past. This was a great collection of his stories. They are just masterpieces.

[Sylvia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cheever captures a mid-century sensibility.Very readable.

[Aaron Briggs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great collection, and a perfect introduction to an absolute master of short fiction. Definitely made me a Cheever fan.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wanted to get a better idea how my dad thinks, thought this would offer some parallels. It did and more.

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a bit of a curate's egg - some good and some weird or depressing.