John Cheever: Collected Stories and Other Writings
by John Cheever
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Collected Stories and Other Writings combines the entire Pulitzer Prize-winning collection, The Stories of John Cheever, with seven selections from his first book, The Way Some People Live (1943)-here restored to print-and seven additional stories first published in periodicals between 1930 and 1953. Included are masterpieces such as The Enormous Radio, Goodbye, My Brother, and The Swimmer, as well as lesser-known gems.Tags
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Member Reviews
As with the other book by John Cheever that I read, I only got this book to read one story in it, "the season of divorce." If you look at my review of his other collection of short stories, you'll see what I think about John Cheever and his writing.
It seems to me that John Cheever had a strange life, and strange friends. His ideas of a home life, and a married life, with children, seem weird. It could be the difference between class, culture, and the time that this was written, but I think it's more than that.
As to the "season of divorce," it's about a married couple who are struggling a bit, because the husband doesn't make much money.
They have a strange routine with their children, where the children eat dinner early and are bathed show more and go to bed, and then the husband and wife have dinner at the dining table with candles and china. Though they eat dishes such as corned beef hash.
One of their neighbors is a doctor who is married to a woman about 15 years older than him. The doctor falls in love with the protagonist's wife. And the wife, in a session in the middle of the night, confesses to her husband how unhappy she is, and why shouldn't she go away? But I guess they end up staying together. Strange.
By the way, John Cheever was bisexual, but hated that aspect of himself, so he was probably very unhappy. show less
It seems to me that John Cheever had a strange life, and strange friends. His ideas of a home life, and a married life, with children, seem weird. It could be the difference between class, culture, and the time that this was written, but I think it's more than that.
As to the "season of divorce," it's about a married couple who are struggling a bit, because the husband doesn't make much money.
They have a strange routine with their children, where the children eat dinner early and are bathed show more and go to bed, and then the husband and wife have dinner at the dining table with candles and china. Though they eat dishes such as corned beef hash.
One of their neighbors is a doctor who is married to a woman about 15 years older than him. The doctor falls in love with the protagonist's wife. And the wife, in a session in the middle of the night, confesses to her husband how unhappy she is, and why shouldn't she go away? But I guess they end up staying together. Strange.
By the way, John Cheever was bisexual, but hated that aspect of himself, so he was probably very unhappy. show less
I am abandoning this at page 386 (out of over 1000 pgs). These short stories are well-written but I am finding the people and life described are depressing me.
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Author Information

162+ Works 11,468 Members
John Cheever, best known for his short stories dealing with upper-middle-class suburban life, was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 1912. Cheever published his first short story at the age of 17, and in 1979, he won the Pulitzer Prize for his collected edition of short stories, titled Stories of John Cheever. Cheever also wrote screenplays, and show more five novels, including The Wapshot Chronicle, which won the National Book Award in 1957. Cheever died in 1982, at the age of 70. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Library of America (188)
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- John Cheever: Collected Stories and Other Writings
- Original publication date
- 2009-03-05
- Publisher's editor
- Bailey, Blake
- Disambiguation notice
- This is an omnibus unique to the Library of America; therefore, all CK facts apply to this publication only.
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- English
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