JOHN CHEEVER

John Cheever - (1912-1982)

John Cheever
Born May 27, 1912, in Quincy, Massachusetts
Died June 18, 1982 (aged 70), of cancer in Ossining, New York.
Occupation short story writer, novelist
Influences: Anton Chekhov, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway
Influenced: Michael Chabon
I. Biography
On May 27, 1912 in Quincy, Massachusetts, John Cheever was born to Frederick and Mary Cheever. John Cheever was very close to older brother Frederick when they were young. John Cheever attended Thayer Academy in Milton, Massachusetts as a teenager until he was expelled at age seventeen for smoking and bad grades.
After his expulsion, John Cheever moved in with his brother, Frederick, who was seven years his senior. In the 1930's, the two brothers moved to Boston, Massachusetts. While in Boston, John Cheever met Hazel Hawthorne, the wife of a famous biographer. She helped him with his writing and provided him with jobs, even after he moved to New York.
In New York, John Cheever met Malcolm Cowley, the editor of the New Republic. Cowley encouraged Cheever to attend Yaddo Writers' Colony in Saratoga Springs, which was run by Elizabeth Ames. Cheever left Yaddo after a month because Ames thought he was spending too much time at the local racetrack. He did return many times after that, though, to work as a handyman.
On March 22, 1941, John Cheever married Mary Winternitz, an instructor of literature at Briarcliff College. From 1941 until 1945, Cheever served in the military, fighting in World War II. He moved to Scarborough, New York in 1950 and taught advanced literary composition at Barnard College in 1955. He and his family spent a year in Italy before permanently moving to Ossining, New York. Cheever, his wife, and his three children, Susan, Ben, and Frederico spent most of their summers at Newfound Lake, New Hampshire.
When John Cheever was sixty, he suffered a massive heart attack and spent many weeks of recovery in the Memorial Hospital in Tarrytown, NY. In 1975, Cheever checked himself into Smithers, an alcoholic rehabilitation center in New York City, for one month. John Cheever died on June 18, 1982 in Ossining, New York.

II. Professional Life
John Cheever's first story to be published was entitled "Expelled," which was about his experience of being expelled from Thayer Academy. It was published in the New Republic October 1, 1930. He signed the story "Jon Cheever".
When Cheever was living in Boston, he was working for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He would read books and then write synopses of those that were possible Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer screenplays. At the age of twenty-two, Cheever had a story published for the first time in The New Yorker, "Brooklyn Rooming House." The New Yorker then went on to publish one hundred and twenty of Cheever's stories.
In 1951, John Cheever began to receive numerous awards. He was made a Guggenheim fellow. "The Five-Forty-Eight ," won the Benjamin Franklin magazine award in 1955 and "The Country Husband" won the O. Henry Award in 1956. He was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1957 and then elevated to American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1973. "The Wapshot Chronicle" won the National Book Award in 1957 and "The Wapshot Scandal" received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Howells Medal in 1965. In 1964, Time magazine put forth a cover story on Cheever's life and writings.
The Wapshot Chronicle is a 1957 novel by John Cheever about an eccentric family who live in a Massachusetts fishing village. It won a National Book Award in 1958 and was followed by a sequel during 1964, The Wapshot Scandal.
The Wapshot Chronicle is the sometimes-humorous story of Leander Wapshot and his sons, Moses and Coverly, as they deal with life. The story is somewhat autobiographical, particularly regarding the character of Coverly, who, like Cheever, experiences feelings of bisexuality.
The novel was Cheever's first, though he had previously written short stories. It was also the first novel selected for the Book of the Month Club to include the obscene word "fuck."
His book Falconer was classified by The New York Times list one of 100 Best Book of all times.
John Cheever was an American writer known for his keen, often critical, view of the American middle class. Known primarily for his short stories, his attention to detail and careful writing found the extraordinary in the ordinary. “I have been a storyteller since the beginning of my life, rearranging facts in order to make them more significant. I have improvised a background for myself - genteel, traditional - and it is generally accepted." - John Cheever, in his journal, 1961.

From the TIME Archive:
Cheever's great strength has always been his ability to charge both the ordinary and the fanciful with emotion
<> (NYTimes)
III. Works by John Cheever

"O City of Broken Dreams." The New Yorker (January 24, 1948)
"Goodbye, My Brother." The New Yorker ( August 25, 1951)
"Artemis, the Honest Well Digger." Playboy (1973)
"The Chimera." The New Yorker (1973)
"The Fourth Alarm." Esquire (1973)
"The Geometry of Love." The Saturday Evening Post (1973)
"The Jewels of the Cabots." Playboy (1973)
"Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin." The New Yorker (1973)
"Montraldo." The New Yorker (1973)
"Percy." The New Yorker (1973)
"Three Stories." Playboy (1973)
"The World of Apples." Esquire (1973)
"Another Story." The New Yorker (1978)
"The Angel of the Bridge." The New Yorker (1978)
"The Brigadier and the Gold Widow." The New Yorker (1978)
"The Bella Lingua." The New Yorker (1978)
"Brimmer." The New Yorker (1978)
"The Bus to St. James's." The New Yorker (1978)
"The Chaste Clarissa." The New Yorker (1978)
"The Children." The New Yorker (1978)
"Christmas Is a Sad Season for the Poor." The New Yorker (1978)
"Clancy in the Tower of Babel." The New Yorker (1978)
"The Common Day." The New Yorker (1978)
"The Country Husband." The New Yorker (1978)
"Boy in Rome." The New Yorker (1978)
"Clementina." The New Yorker (1978)
"The Cure." The New Yorker (1978)
"The Day the Pig Fell into the Well." The New Yorker (1978)
"The Death of Justina." The New Yorker (1978)
"The Duchess." The New Yorker (1978)
"An Educated American Woman." The New Yorker (1978)
"The Enormous Radio." The New Yorker (1978)
"The Five-Forty-Eight." The New Yorker (1978)
"The Golden Age." The New Yorker (1978)
"The Hartleys." The New Yorker (1978)
"The Housebreaker of Shady Hill." The New Yorker (1978)
"Just One More Time." The New Yorker (1978).
"Just Tell Me Who It Was." The New Yorker (1978)
"The Lowboy." The New Yorker (1978)
"Marito in Città." The New Yorker (1978)
"Metamorphoses." The New Yorker (1978)
"A Miscellany of Characters That Will Not Appear." The New Yorker (1978)
"The Music Teacher." The New Yorker (1978)
"The Ocean." The New Yorker (1978)
"O Youth and Beauty!" The New Yorker (1978)
"The Pot of Gold." The New Yorker (1978)
"Reunion." The New Yorker (1978)
"The Scarlet Moving Van." The New Yorker (1978)
"The Seaside Houses." The New Yorker (1978)
"The Season of Divorce." The New Yorker (1978)
"The Sorrows of Gin." The New Yorker (1978)
"The Summer Farmer." The New Yorker (1978)
"The Sutton Place Story." The New Yorker ( 1978)
"The Superintendent." The New Yorker (1978)
"The Swimmer." The New Yorker (1978)
"Torch Song." The New Yorker (1978)
"The Trouble of Marcie Flint." The New Yorker (1978)
"A Vision of the World." The New Yorker (1978)
"A Woman Without a Country." The New Yorker (1978)
"The Worm in the Apple." The New Yorker (1978)
"The Wrysons." The New Yorker (1978)