The Wrysons

by John Cheever

The Wrysons of Shady Hill wanted everything in their suburb to stay the same. They distrusted anything unusual. But the Wrysons were odd in ways no one knew about. Irene Wryson's oddness centered on a dream that she had once or twice a month about the world being destroyed by a hydrogen bomb. Donald Wryson's oddness could be traced to his childhood. His father abandoned his mother & the only time she was ever cheerful was when she was showing young Donald how to bake cakes & cookies. In all the years following Donald would sometimes bake a cake. After his marriage he did it late at night, secretly. One night Irene had her dream. She got up & found that her husband had made a cake. All at once they were both mystified by life & more determined, that ever to keep up a good appearance.

Genres: Short Stories

10 pages, Unknown Binding

First published September 13, 1958

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 Wrysons live in the suburbs where their most important activity is getting signatures on petitions upholding the town's restrictive zoning laws. The husband and wife each has a secret that they have never told each other. Irene has recurring dreams about explosions of nuclear bombs over their neighborhood. Donald secretly bakes Lady Baltimore cakes, an activity he did with his late mother, which gives him comfort from depression. Cheever tells us what didn't happen to the couple, including a comic/sad Christmas card event, before bringing everything together in their normal life.

"The Wrysons" is story #27 in the collection, "The Stories of John Cheever."

[Georgina N · Rating 2 out of 5]

Η ζώνη ασφαλείας (comfort zone) είναι για να ξεπερνιέται διαρκώς ώστε να αυξήσουμε το πεδίο της δραστηριότητάς μας και να ωριμάσουμε σαν άνθρωποι . Για την πρωταγωνίστρια Irene ο φόβος της αλλαγής είναι σαν το φόβο της για την καταστροφή του κόσμου . Ζει στη φούσκα της και οποιαδήποτε διαταραχή είναι γι'αυτήν βόμβα υδρογόνου .Το Αμερικανικό Όνειρο δεν είναι για όλους .Σίγουρα όχι για τους πρωταγωνιστές του βιβλίου.

Δε μπορώ να πω ότι είχε κάτι παραπάνω να πει η συγκεκριμένη ιστορία . Μου άφησε μία πικρή επίγευση και δεν την προτείνω.

[Classic reverie · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Cheever's "The Wrysons" is about a couple in his Shady Hills, that do not like change and worry about any new neighbors and what they would be like. In that many people would agree about new neighbors, I would not like to have unkind ones but the Wrysons seem extreme and not very neighborly themselves. I notice a difference in neighborhoods of today and of my youth, people generally keep to themselves. Besides their insecurities which are strange, but really people in general have hidden fears or troubles that are unknown to others and they keep from their loved ones. The Wrysons are worried about the other finding this out.


"Irene Wryson’s oddness centered on a dream. She dreamed once or twice a month that someone—some enemy or hapless American pilot—had exploded a hydrogen bomb. In the light of day, her dream was inadmissible, for she could not relate it to her garden, her interest in upzoning, or her comfortable way of life. She could not bring herself to tell her husband at breakfast that she had dreamed about the hydrogen bomb."

"The dream cost her much in energy and composure, and often left her deeply depressed. Its sequence of events varied, but it usually went like this. The dream was set in Shady Hill—she dreamed that she woke in her own bed. Donald was always gone. She was at once aware of the fact that the bomb had exploded. Mattress stuffing and a trickle of brown water were coming through a big hole in the ceiling."

"She cried, in her dream, to see this inhumanity as the world was ending. She cried, and she went on watching, as if some truth was being revealed to her—as if she had always known this to be the human condition, as if she had always known the world to be dangerous and the comforts of her life in Shady Hill to be the merest palliative."

[mark propp · Rating 4 out of 5]

funny little story. quirky couple who are portrayed as a blend of generally vague stupidity & slightly lovable odd behaviors. takes some twists & turns as i've come to expect, and pacts a lot of funny little details into its brief length.

i'm not sure if i'd like the real life wrysons. they're a mixed bag. they probably favor a heavily regulated economy & they definitely seem to be nimbys who'd use government to prevent development. those kinds of people really suck.

but they also are quiet & weird & apparently mostly mind their own business, which is ok.

bad probably outweighs the good, but doesn't it always when it comes to people.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this a sad little story about a couple in suburbia and how we isolate ourselves, and in doing so, narrow our lives. Both husband and wife have a harmless secret from one another, but the keeping of it builds a barrier between being genuinely close and just going through the motions. The narrator claims they are odd, but what is most disturbing about them is that they are really quite ordinary, quite like many of the people you meet every day--maybe a bit like yourself?

(#27 - Stories of John Cheever)

[Allie Fleury]

The world did not end, but neither did their interior need to keep up appearances. This story ends as a tragedy.

[Sarah Sammis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Besides the Wrysons and their oh so controlled, bland version of suburban life, is the narrator's observations of the ills of living in suburbia. There is the housewives addicted to prescription drugs. There's the pornographer.

And then the narrator turns back to the Wrysons with a vengeance. The core reason that they don't want things to change is fear. Mrs. Wryson dreams nightly of the world ending. She dreams of poisoning herself and her daughter. Only to wake up to another banal day.

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