The Wapshot Chronicle (1957)

Interesting but a bit dated. Definitely worth the read. ( )

Een boek waar ik me bijna doorheen moest worstelen. Ik stond twee keer op het punt om er mee op te houden maar uiteindelijk las ik het toch met plezier uit. Er zitten geweldige stukken in, heel verrassend, maar af en toe is het ook langdradig en saai. Kortom, niet makkelijk toegankelijk maar wel de moeite waard. ( )

It's gonna happen sometime, people, no matter how you may dread it. Yes, I am referring to my long-planned, heavily-unanticipated, as-yet-unwritten, irritatingly irrelevant monograph on John Cheever, wherein I single-handedly return him to his proper place in the first rank of American novelists. Due in equal parts to Seinfeld and postmodernism, Cheever has become little more than a punch line: a sad symbol of dated postwar suburban cocktail-party angst… well, think again, bitches! The Wapshot Chronicle is a heartbreakingly beautiful novel, full of moral clarity, the inevitability of sin, sex, booze, ambition, jazz, city life, country life, all poured out in chiselled, pristine prose. There will be more to come from me in this vein, I promise. Oh yes, I promise. ( )

I'm not really sure what put John Cheever's "The Wapshot Chronicle" on my reading list -- perhaps it was just that I thought I should read something by Cheever. It's hard to rate this one, as the book was a really slow starter and didn't keep my interest all that much at first. However, I really liked the latter portion of the book, which got a lot more interesting.

The novel tells the story of the men in the Wapshot family -- a typical wealthy New England family with plenty of drama. It focuses on Leander and his two sons Moses and Coverly, as the latter two are sent off into the world to find their fortunes.

There were lots of good bits in the book, but I didn't think they were all tied together well. ( )

In many senses of the phrase, this is Cheever's "coming out" book. A debut that startled us with hints of bisexuality and made us wonder how much of the rest of the tale was autobiographical (and therefore true). Where was that fishing village when I was coming out? ( )