About this title: To read all of these stories in three or four sittings is to enter a world of lush lawns and swimming pools, martinis and backyard barbecues, the alienation of living in a big city, the anxiety of being surrounded by those whom you hope you resemble. Here Cheever captures the essence of urbanity and suburbanness, the angst of the station wagon, the paradox of loneliness inherent in being surrounded by people. Also included in this collection are Cheever's stories of Italy.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Description: Good. Former Library book. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Acceptable. Book is in good reading condition. Cover has wear at edges and corners. Spine has wear at edges. Dust jacket has some wear and a few small tears. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Knopf
Date Published: 1978
ISBN-13:9780394500874ISBN:0394500873
Description: Acceptable in Good jacket. Ex-library; Stated 1st Edition; Fair Condition for Age and Ex-library Overall below average used book. May have highlighting, underlining, notes, price sticker on cover, or be an ex-library book. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, New York
Date Published: 1978
ISBN-13:9780394500874ISBN:0394500873
Description: Good+ 12mo = 7-9" 693pp. Trade paperback. Spine creased and faded. Top of front cover and first free endpage has very small piece missing. A few small faint stains on textblock edges. Pages like new, no browning, spine tight. read more
Edition: 11th ptg.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Ballantine, New York
Date Published: 1991
ISBN-13:9780345335678ISBN:0345335678
Description: Book: Good. 12mo. 819 pp. 4 1/4 x 7. Library rebind. White glossy boards; original cover pasted down on front. Ex college lib with usual markings. read more
Binding: Cloth
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Date Published: 1978
ISBN-13:9780394500836ISBN:0394500830
Description: Good in Good jacket. Good in Good jacket 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. A collection of Cheever's short stories, originally published between 1946 and 1975. 693 pp. read more
Description: Acceptable. Former Library book. Shows definite wear, and perhaps considerable marking on inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
"This is kind of a cheater review since I didn't finish the book (this may happen at some point, though it will not be in the immediate future), but not finishing it left me with a few things to say, so here we are.
First, I have to say that I didn't stop reading because I don't like the writing. Cheever can render characters content in their discontent with the best of them, and I never expected him to be so funny. I didn't mark many quotes, but here are two just for kicks:
"When you get to be as old as me, that's the only way you can meet people-automobile accidents, fires, things like that."
"'I don't mind you looking in my windows at night, Mr. Marston,' I was going to say, in a voice loud enough to embarrass him, 'but I wish that you wouldn't trample on my wife's flowers.'"
Most of his humor has a dark edge to it, a sarcastic bitterness that fits his characters nicely. Several of the stories I got through end up relying on this humor for their full impact. "The Superintendent," "The Sorrows of Gin," and "The Five-Forty-Eight" all come to mind, although the latter is definitely darker, in some ways the darkest and saddest I read here, and I'm not entirely sure it was supposed to be amusing.
The whole humor bit was supposed to be a tangent, so it's time to get this train back on the rails. Cheever's characters, at both their best and their worst, are dynamic and catty and charming and quite a bit of fun to read. I have no quotes for this because I suck, but you should just take my word for it. No, really.
But. The thing is, it turns out I can only handle so many pages (262 to be exact) of stories detailing the intricacies and intrigues of upper middle class families summering on the Atlantic coast. This is a generalization, yes, but not a gross one. The stories start to feel familiar, as though we're cycling through encounters with the same characters over and over with changed names to differentiate them. This may be enough if the stories are read separately with time and other stories between them, but back to back to back in a collection like this, the similarities in setting and characters and conflicts make it hard for any of them to stand out from the others. "Goodbye, My Brother" and "The Swimmer" still hold strong (after deciding I wasn't going to finish the book this try, I skipped ahead to "The Swimmer" just to see if I still like it as much as I did years ago when I first read it, and I was relieved to find that I do), and some of the funnier or darker ones gain traction away from the pack, but too many of them don't."
"Much like The Stone Diaries, I always find it uncomfortable to give a less-than-sparkling review of an award-winning book - makes me feel like I missed something...
Be that as it may, I could appreciate some of the writing in this collection, but I found myself very quickly bored with a cast of supremely privileged characters, or underprivileged characters who are willing to sacrifice anything in order to join the supremely privileged. After a while, the stories just seemed like a parade of servants, minks and aristocratic woes and I had to put the book down..."
"I've read 10 stories and I love John Cheever. I got interested in this era - 40's - early '60's - suburbs, country clubs, country houses, NY apts. when I read Revolutionary Road. It wasn't exactly the same....but there is a lot of cocktails, bourgeoise and the American dream all tied up in this post-war United States. People weren't happy, but they weren't sad either. Cheever is an observer of this life that he took part in it. His characters are the key to the stories and the stories wouldn't exist without them. What I love is that not much has changed, just as when I read Catcher in Rye. I love the simplicity and the beauty of the writing in a very innocent, but upwardly mobile age before women's lib, yet many liberated women existed, but they were sacrificial lambs. I can't put these stories down - they are addictive. Cheever is a great observer of life and I would be interested to see what he would say about the 21st century, if he hadn't passed away so long ago in the '70's."
"All right, I'll admit it. As much as I'd like you all to believe that I know all of modern fiction's greats by towering reputation alone, I found out about Cheever for *points to own sexual orientation* all the wrong reasons.
It's astonishing, in that light, how many of these stories feature an amorphous, ambiguous threat encroaching upon the liminal spaces on suburban heterosexual family life. See "The Enormous Radio," in which other families' private lives literally intrude upon a young couple's own, or "The Five-Forty-Eight," in which a philandering businessman's infidelity literally follows him home. (Note: "The Five-Forty-Eight" made my jaw drop.)
I held off on tackling this collection for a while because I felt that I'd had my fill of dystopic portraits of 1950s families. You can only read so many stories and books in which the wife pours a third cocktail and the husband rolls in late after a four-hour bender (read: at a bar with no cars parked in the lot because the cops crawl through it and take down the license plate numbers of suspected homosexuals). And to be honest, there is a fair amount of that in this collection, plus a few stories that even the most ardent fan will admit are a little wobbly, but when he's on, WOW."
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