John Cheever: Complete Stories [Hardcover]

My eyes are bleary. Since this year began I have read the excellent new biography of John Cheever by Blake Bailey and the two excellent Cheever books in the famed Library of America Series. Bailey was the editor for these two weighty tomes. All together I know more about Cheever after over 2,000 pages of small print prose than I did before. You as the reader are in for a festschrift of pure unalloyed reading pleasure as you hunker down with these great short stories. Short stories are difficult to produce and these masterpieces from the pages of the New Yorker and other magazines are worthy of study and appreciation.
John Cheever (1912-1982) was an alcoholic, grumpy man who wrote like a suburban angel. His mileu is in the cosy suburbs nestled in New England rural surroundings or in the environs of New York City. Most of the stories can be found in Cheever's Collected Stories of 1978. In addition to these gems there are stories from early in his careers, a reminiscence of his trip to Chekhov's home in Russia and literary appreciations of Saul Bellow and Malcolm Cowley and Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald are also included. Bailey provides a good introduction to the Cheever oeuvre and there is a detailed chronoloy given of Cheever's life and career. All of the stories are worth reading but these are my favorites:
1. The Swimmer-This was made into a movie starring Burt Lancaster. It deals with an alcoholic's Sunday goal of swimming his way home by dipping in the pools of all his neighhbors. A sad tale of middle class angst, loss and disorder.
2. The Enormous Radio-It reads like a Twilight Zone episode. A bored couple who love classical music by a new radio. The radio allows them to listen in to the mundane lives of their neighbors.
3. Metamorphoses. Cheever was dubbed "The Ovid of Ossining". Ovid's most famous work was the Metamorphoses and in this brilliant story John Cheever tells the story of three people whose live were drastically changed.
4. The National Pastime-An unusual tale of a father-son relationship and the strange part played in it by baseball.
5. First Tell Me Who It Was-A middle aged man married to a trophy wife fears she is an adulterous spouse.
6. The Housebreaker of Shady Hill-A straight arrow decides to rob the homes of his rich neighbors leading to a moral epiphany in his life.
7. Expelled-Published while in his teens this story launched Cheever's career. Editor Malcolm Cowley had it published in the New Republic. It is based on Cheever's own expulsion from a tony New England prep school.
There are several stories based on the lives of affluent Americans living in Rome and in Italy. Cheever, his wife and three children lived there for a time. These stories were good but I prefer those in which we visit New England's communities such as Bullet Park and Shady Hill.
John Cheever wrote with superb skill in his lyrical descriptions of nature. We smell the smoke from the burning logs as a New England autumn begins. We catch rays of light from a window or feel the winter wind blow against our redding cheeks. The sex scenes in the stories is handled with sensitivity and avoids luridness. Profanity is used but sparingly. Cheever was bisexual but there are few allusions to homosexuality in these many pages.
John Cheever has long been out of favor with the academy. However, the biography by Bailey and the new Library of America volumes should help his climb back into the literary spotlight. These stories are among the best ever written by an American.

I am a fan of the Library of America (LOA) editions for their quality and quality of an author's writings. However, if the reader already owns "The Stories of John Cheever" (1978), there is no need to buy this LOA unless the reader is looking for completeness. Mr. Cheever approved the 61 tales in "The Stories of John Cheever" four years before his death and omitted his pre-1945 output intentionally. The LOA edition adds fourteen more stories plus his observations about writing. If one does not own the earlier collection, then the LOA writings are the one to own. The editor, Mr. Bailey, has also published his biography of John Cheever to coincide with the release of the LOA edition.

I first discovered the stories of John Cheever while in high school in the pages of the "New Yorker" magazine and even in that wonderful publication they stood out. Each one was a marvelously crafted piece whose existence defined writing excellence. One of the best Christmas presents I ever received was the collected stories of John Cheever in 1981. I am happy to say that the same person who bought the now falling apart paperback also bought this version, just in time to replace that ragged often read volume is this new edition of Cheever's work.

It is very difficult to write a review of book of short stories. There is no over riding theme to these works. When I read them as an adolescent it was with an eye toward imagining what adulthood would be like (War and Peace was also the source for this preview of coming attractions). 30 years later I can now appreciate that there are certain themes not addressed by Cheever that do crop up from time to time and some things that do not(this happened with Tolstoy too, I have yet to have face invasion by Napoleon). The stories themselves hold up marvelously, however and I cannot say this about many of the authors I read as a teenager.

All I can do in a work of this nature is to mention a few of my favorite stories that are particular delights. These are: "The Enormous Radio," "The Sorrows of Gin," "The Housebreaker of Shady Hill," "The Swimmer," and "The Jewels of the Cabots." These are just my personal favorites and should in no way influence anyone's opinion about which are the best in the collection. Along with the stories are some non-fiction pieces that Cheever wrote for "The New Yorker." There is no better book to read out on the patio during the late days of summer than this one. Enjoy!

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