Collected Stories [Paperback]

John Cheever (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 18, 1990

These outstanding stories of American award-winning novelist, John Cheever, show the power and range of one of the finest short story writers of the century. Stories of love and squalor, set in a world in which momentary glimpses of brightness contend with time, social change, and the chaos of history.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Think of John Cheever's fiction, and a whole world springs to mind--a world of leafy suburbs, summer houses, commuter trains, boarding schools, and inevitably, his own chosen territory, the cocktail hour among WASPs. But it's a mistake to approach Cheever as if he were merely some sort of anthropologist documenting the customs of an obscure and vanishing tribe. Nostalgia and class issues aside, his true subject is the darkness hidden beneath the surface of postwar American life. A case in point is his famous story "The Swimmer," in which an ebullient Neddy Merrill decides to swim home across the backyard pools of his neighbors. In the course of his journey, however, summer gives way to autumn, his neighbors turn against him, there are troubling intimations of disgrace and financial ruin, and he arrives to find his house both locked and empty.

Though these stories deal with bright, prosperous, ostensibly happy people, a cold wind blows through them. Age, illness, financial embarrassment, sex, alcohol, death--all of these threaten his suburban Eden. (Is it himself Cheever is mocking in his ironic "The Worm in the Apple"? "Everyone in the community with wandering hands had given them both a try but they had been put off. What was the source of this constancy? Were they frightened? Were they prudish? Were they monogamous? What was at the bottom of this appearance of happiness?") Inanimate objects carry the residue of their past owners' unhappiness and cruelty ("Seaside Houses," "The Lowboy"); expatriates long for but cannot quite find their way home ("The Woman Without A Country," "Boy in Rome"); children vanish or turn out badly (too many stories to count).

All of this is conveyed in prose both graceful and tender. No one is better than Cheever at describing a character's appearance: "He was a cheerful, heavy man with a round face that looked exactly like a pudding. Everyone was glad to see him, as one is glad to see, at the end of a meal, the appearance of a bland, fragrant, and nourishing dish made of fresh eggs, nutmeg, and country cream." Given his uncanny eye (and ear) for realistic description, it's easy to forget how experimental Cheever could be. His later stories pioneered authorial intrusions in the best postmodern style, and from the beginning, he wrote what would much later be called magical realism. (Think of the sinister broadcasts in "The Enormous Radio," or the phantom love interest in "The Chimera.") A literary event at its publication and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1979, The Stories of John Cheever remains a stunning and enormously influential book. --Mary Park --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Cheever's accomplishment in his exacting art is proportionally large, as solid as it is brilliant, and likely to endure New York Review of Books Currently I'm reading John Cheever's Collected Stories. My God, he was good 'The Swimmer' is a masterpiece of mystery, language and sorrow I reread Cheever's 'The Swimmer' late the other night. It had the effect that reading Cheever always has: it made me want to get up and start the futile task of trying to write something as measured yet mysteriously, heart-judderingly unexpected for myself Sunday Times Magnificently touching, moving and funny, and often set in an imaginary but archetypically well-heeled American suburb John Cheever understood fallibility and that made for the greatness in his writing The Times A writer of grace and wit, quietly dealing with people, like himself, who sense that their seemly, well-respected lives are being lived upon a precipice Sunday Times

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Product Details

• Paperback: 892 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (October 18, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0099748304
• ISBN-13: 978-0099748304
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 1.9 x 7.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (80 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,719,653 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

81 of 83 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It has a cummulative effect, October 2, 1999

By 

Webb Haymaker "Social Worker" (Connecticut) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Stories of John Cheever (Hardcover)

I bought a used copy of this book and on the cover there is an upper middle class couple having drinks around a dining table in the drained swimming pool in their backyard. At first I didn't think much of it, but after reading the stories, I think it makes so much sense. There is always something slightly off about Cheever's stories, but it's hard to put your finger on what that is. It took me a little while to get into these stories, but after a while I came to love them. By the end of the book, the ending of the story, Another Story, knocked me breathless. The best ending to a short story I've ever read. I have also see how influential Cheever was on contemporary American short story writers, at least Tobias Wolff, Mary Robison and I think Lorrie Moore as well. This is the sort of book you want to savor , a couple stories a day. Cheever is a master of subtly shifting the mood of a piece. Out of the blue you'll suddenly realize you're in a different place from where you started.

60 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of 20th Century America's Best, October 21, 2003

By 

Rocco Dormarunno (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Stories of John Cheever (Paperback)

Most of my students scratch their heads and mutter "Who?" when I tell them they will be reading the selected stories of John Cheever. When I tell them that Cheever is a representative of upper crusty, mid-twentieth century, cosmopolitan American cities, the sighs and groans can be heard crosstown.
Then they read the stories: "Goodbye, My Brother", "The Swimmer", "The Enormous Radio"... And the discussions are as lively as any instructor could hope for.
And their excitement reminds me over and again of the thrill I had reading these stories for the first time. (I'm almost jealous of my students--I miss that first time pleasure.) These are stories perfect in their craftsmanship, memorable in their characters, and decidedly superior to anything of his time, and just about anything since. Pick up this collection and enjoy.

Rocco Dormarunno,
College of New Rochelle

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Good American Short Story Book, January 24, 2005

By 

Laura Torrespico (Chicago, U.S.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Stories of John Cheever (Paperback)

This is one of the best short story American books I've read. Cheever narrates these stories about ordinary people in a simplistic and nervous fashion. Cheever subtlety describes his characters as pathetic in a sarcastic way but effectively manages to get his readers to like them. His stories are at times shady, moralistic, and mystical that keeps you practically glued to the pages of the book. My favorites are The Swimmer, and The Enormous Radio. Even though his topics touch on the lives of the so called "Wasps", I don't think you have to be one, but have the knowledge of how people that live in quiet desperation live in order to understand and enjoy Cheever's writings.