Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Literature

Extract

Hailed as the “Ovid of Ossining” and the “Chekhov of the Suburbs,” John Cheever emerged as one of America's most popular writers after World War II. Though an accomplished novelist, Cheever made his name as a short story writer, best exemplified by his long association with the New Yorker . His fiction embraces the absurdity and irresistible allure of a pastoral vision in the modern era of alienation and dispossession. Cheever was born on May 27, 1912 in Quincy, Massachusetts, a town that served as a model for St. Botolphs in The Wapshot Chronicle ( 1957 ), which won the National Book Award, and its sequel The Wapshot Scandal ( 1964 ). Between 1943 and 1982, he published five novels and seven collections of short stories, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Stories of John Cheever ( 1978 ). Before his death in 1982, he was awarded the National Medal for Literature by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. His New England childhood, his relationship with his brother, his life in Manhattan and Westchester County, and his struggles with alcohol exercised an extraordinary influence over his work. Cheever's fiction draws on romantic and modern traditions in American literature. Scholars have long read the influence of Thoreau, Emerson, Whitman, and Hawthorne in his writing, pointing specifically to Cheever's use of allegory and the way his work draws upon symbols ... log in or subscribe to read full text