John Cheever Book order

Selected and Introduced by Booker-Prize winner Julian Barnes 'Reading Cheever is a restless pleasure, the work never settles- these brilliant stories make me get up and walk around the room' Anne Enright John Cheever - the 'Chekhov of the suburbs' - forever altered the landscape of contemporary literature. In a career that spanned nearly fifty years, his short stories, often published in the New Yorker, gave voice to the repressed desires and smouldering disappointments of 1950s America as it teetered on the edge of spiritual awakening and sexual liberation in the ensuing decades. Selected for the first time, these satirical, fantastical, sad and transcendent stories show Cheever in all his brilliance and continue to speak directly to the heart of human experience. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award

John Cheever understood fallibility and that made for the greatness in his writing The Times

In a charming American village, elderly romantic Lemuel Sears finds himself falling in love with strangers. However, his idyllic life is at risk as he confronts the darker sides of late-twentieth-century civilization. Can he protect his beloved village from these threats?

John Cheever's journals reveal the inner life of this remarkable writer and the contradictions that drove him. He loved his wife and their children, but was acutely lonely; he loved women, but he also loved men; he was a great writer, but one whose acute levels of perception often crippled him as a person.

The collection showcases John Cheever's intimate thoughts through a vast array of letters penned to friends, family, and notable writers, revealing his candid reflections on life and relationships. Edited by his son Benjamin, these letters offer a more personal narrative than his journals, capturing the essence of his experiences and emotions. Cheever’s belief that letters should be discarded adds a layer of authenticity, making this compilation a poignant exploration of his inner world, rich with vivid human connection.

A collection of 13 early stories from the 1930s and 1940s.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JAY MCINERNEYJohn Cheever's letters offer a tantalising glimpse into the life of a writer. They include correspondence with his contemporaries, such as Philip Roth, John Updike and Saul Bellow, his days as a young, aspiring writer and his battles with bisexuality and alcoholism.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY DAVE EGGERSOnce upon a time the Wapshots of St. Botolphs were distinguished for their unshakeable good opinion of themselves.

The American writer, John Cheever, died in 1982, leaving behind 29 loose-leaf notebooks begun in the late Forties. They form the content of this book. His commitment to them was of central importance to his life - as a workbook and a retreat, an unhindered act of self-revelation where he could explore his ambiguities. He loved his wife and their children, but was acutely lonely; he loved women, but he also loved men; he hated himself for his drinking, but for much of his life was dependent upon it; he was a great writer, but one whose acute levels of perception often crippled him as a person.

Meet the Wapshots of St Botolphs. There is Captain Leander Wapshot, venerable sea-dog and would-be suicide; his licentious older son, Moses; and Moses's adoring and errant younger brother, Coverly. Tragic and funny, ribald and splendidly picaresque, and partly based on Cheever's adolescence in New England, The Wapshot Chronicle is a stirring family narrative in the finest traditions of Trollope, Dickens, and Henry James