Cheever, John

Cheever, John
born May 27, 1912, Quincy, Mass., U.S.
died June 18, 1982, Ossining, N.Y.

U.S. short-story writer and novelist.

Cheever lived principally in southern Connecticut. His stories appeared notably in The New Yorker, his clear and elegant prose delineating the drama and sadness of life in comfortable suburban America, often through fantasy and ironic comedy. He has been called the Chekhov of the suburbs. His collections include The Enormous Radio (1953), The Brigadier and the Golf Widow (1964), and The Stories of John Cheever (1978, Pulitzer Prize). Among his novels are The Wapshot Chronicle (1957), The Wapshot Scandal (1964), and Falconer (1977). His revealing journals were published in 1991. Two of his children, Susan and Benjamin, also became writers.

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▪ American author
born May 27, 1912, Quincy, Massachusetts, U.S.
died June 18, 1982, Ossining, New York

      American short-story writer and novelist whose work describes, often through fantasy and ironic comedy, the life, manners, and morals of middle-class, suburban America. Cheever has been called “the Chekhov of the suburbs” for his ability to capture the drama and sadness of the lives of his characters by revealing the undercurrents of apparently insignificant events. Known as a moralist, he judges his characters from the standpoint of traditional morality.

      Cheever himself was born into a middle-class family, his father being employed in the shoe business then booming in New England. With the eventual failure of the shoe industry and the difficulties of his parents' marriage, he had an unhappy adolescence. His expulsion at age 17 from the Thayer Academy in Massachusetts provided the theme for his first published story, which appeared in The New Republic in 1930. During the Great Depression he lived in New York City's Greenwich Village. Cheever married in 1941 and had three children. In 1942 he enlisted in the army to train as an infantryman, but the army soon reassigned him to the Signal Corps as a scriptwriter for training films. After the war Cheever and his wife moved from New York City to the suburbs, whose culture and mores are often examined in his subsequent fiction.

      Cheever's name was closely associated with The New Yorker, a periodical that published many of his stories, but his works also appeared in The New Republic, Collier's, Story, and The Atlantic. A master of the short story, Cheever worked from “the interrupted event,” which he considered the prime source of short stories. He was famous for his clear and elegant prose and his careful fashioning of incidents and anecdotes. He is perhaps best-known for the two stories "The Enormous Radio" (1947) and "The Swimmer" (1964; filmed 1968). In the former story a young couple discovers that their new radio receives the conversations of other people in their apartment building but that this fascinating look into other people's problems does not solve their own. In "The Swimmer" a suburban man decides to swim his way home in the backyard pools of his neighbours and finds on the way that he is a lost soul in several senses. Cheever's first collection of short stories, The Way Some People Live (1943), was followed by many others, including The Enormous Radio and Other Stories (1953) and The Brigadier and the Golf Widow (1964). The Stories of John Cheever (1978) won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

      Cheever's ability in his short stories to focus on the episodic caused him difficulty in constructing extended narratives in his novels. Nonetheless, his first novel, The Wapshot Chronicle (1957)—a satire on, among other subjects, the misuses of wealth and psychology—earned him the National Book Award. Its sequel, The Wapshot Scandal (1964), was less successful. Falconer (1977) is the dark tale of a drug-addicted college professor who is imprisoned for murdering his brother. Oh What a Paradise It Seems (1982) is an elegiac story about a New Englander's efforts to preserve the quality of his life and that of a mill town's pond. The Letters of John Cheever, edited by his son Benjamin Cheever, was published in 1988, and in 1991 The Journals of John Cheever appeared. The latter is deeply revealing of both the man and the writer.

Additional Reading
Susan Cheever, Home Before Dark (1984, reissued 1991), and Scott Donaldson, John Cheever (1988, reprinted 1990), are both biographies. Critical interpretations include Samuel Coale, John Cheever (1977, reissued 1984); George W. Hunt, John Cheever: The Hobgoblin Company of Love (1983); James E. O'Hara, John Cheever: A Study of the Short Fiction (1989); and Patrick Meanor, John Cheever Revisited (1995).

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Universalium. 2010.

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  • Cheever, John — (27 may. 1912, Quincy, Mass., EE.UU.–18 jun. 1982, Ossining, N.Y.). Cuentista y novelista estadounidense. Cheever vivió gran parte de su vida en el sur de Connecticut. Sus cuentos aparecieron principalmente en The New Yorker. Su prosa clara y… …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Cheever,John — Chee·ver (chēʹvər), John. 1912 1982. American writer who depicted life in American suburbs with humor and compassion in his short stories and novels. He won a Pulitzer Prize for The Stories of John Cheever (1978). * * * …   Universalium

  • Cheever, John William —    см. Чивер, Джон …   Писатели США. Краткие творческие биографии

  • John Cheever — Born May 27, 1912(1912 05 27) Quincy, Massachusetts, United States Died June 18, 1982(1982 06 18) (aged 70) Ossining, New York …   Wikipedia

  • John Cheever — John Cheever. John Cheever (Quincy, Massachusetts, 27 de mayo de 1912 Ossining, Nueva York, 18 de junio de 1982) fue un autor de relatos y novelista estadounidense, frecuentemente llamado el Chejov de los barrios residenciales . Biografía …   Wikipedia Español

  • John Cheever — Autres noms Le Tchekhov des faubourgs Activités Écrivain Naissance 27 mai 1912 Décès 18 juin 1982 Genres Nouvelle, Roman …   Wikipédia en Français

  • CHEEVER (J.) — CHEEVER JOHN (1912 1982) Né dans le Massachusetts, John Cheever est presque un auteur régionaliste. Sa région, c’est l’est des États Unis: la Nouvelle Angleterre, New York et sa grande banlieue; lorsqu’il quitte l’Amérique, c’est toujours pour… …   Encyclopédie Universelle

  • John Cheever — noun United States writer of novels and short stories (1912 1982) • Syn: ↑Cheever • Instance Hypernyms: ↑writer, ↑author * * * John Cheever [John Cheever …   Useful english dictionary

  • john — /jon/, n. Slang. 1. a toilet or bathroom. 2. (sometimes cap.) a fellow; guy. 3. (sometimes cap.) a prostitute s customer. [generic use of the proper name] * * * I known as John Lackland born Dec. 24, 1167, Oxford, Eng. died Oct. 18/19, 1216,… …   Universalium

  • John — /jon/, n. 1. the apostle John, believed to be the author of the fourth Gospel, three Epistles, and the book of Revelation. 2. See John the Baptist. 3. (John Lackland) 1167? 1216, king of England 1199 1216; signer of the Magna Carta 1215 (son of… …   Universalium

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