JOHN CHEEVER

John Cheever (1912-1982) A number of Cheever's early works were published in The New Republic, Collier's Story, and The Atlantic .  His first collection of stories, The Way Some People Live, was published in 1943. His second collection, The Enormous Radio and Other Stories, was published in 1953. The stories had been written for The New Yorker, and most of them were set in New York City .

In the mid-1950’s, Cheever began writing novels.  He is the author of The Wasphot Chronicle, Some People, Places and Things that will not Appear in my Next Novel, The Wasphot Scandal, Bullet Park , The World of Apples and Falconer, among others. Cheever is sometimes called the "Chekhov of the suburbs".  His main theme was the spiritual and emotional emptiness of life. He especially described the manners and morals of middle-class, suburban America , with an ironic humour that softened his basically dark vision. Although he often used his family as material, his daughter Susan Cheever has reminded that "of course none of us expected accuracy from my father. He made his living by making up stories."  The Stories of John Cheever won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, The National Books Critics Circle Award, and an American Book Award.  Cheever died in 1982 at he age of 70. His widow signed a contract with a small publisher for the right to publish his uncollected short stories. They, along with his journals and letters, were finally published in the early 1990’s.

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