Cheever

by Blake Bailey

  194 “stand reading and rereading”: Linscott to JC, June 7, 1951, Columbia.

  194 “looking around desperately”: LJC, 159.

  194 “to get a clearer idea”: JC to Herbst [c. April 1953], Yale.

  194 “to old, tender-hearted, soft-brained friends”: GT, 73.

  195 “The short story is determined”: quoted in Harvey Breit, “In and Out of Books,” New York Times Book Review, May 10, 1953, 8.

  195 Reviews of The Enormous Radio: James Kelly, in New York Times Book Review, May 10, 1953, 21; William Peden, in Saturday Review, May 11, 1953, 43–44; Arthur Mizener, in New Republic, May 25, 1953, 19–20; William DuBois, in New York Times, May 1, 1953, 19.

  196 “one hell of a story”: JC to Lobrano, Jan. 30, 1948, NYPL-MSS.

  197 “to find the self-designated intellectuals”: quoted in GT, 73.

  197 “I suppose the happiest days of my life”: JC to Natalie Robins, Dec. 3 [1969].

  197 “very riveted”: author int. Sarah Stevenson, Dec. 6, 2004.

  197 “very pleasant ritual”: CJC, 22.

  197 “Almighty God, maker of all things”: JC, “Thanks, Too, for Memories,” New York Times, Nov. 26, 1949, C1.

  198 “Physical contact was not encouraged”: HBD, 36.

  200 “[Susan's] smile was broad and forced”: LJC, 157.

  200 “I yearned to discharge”: JJC, 31.

  200 “D-e-r-e daddy, don't leave us”: Raymond Carver, Fires (Santa Barbara, Calif.: Capra Press, 1983), 200.

  201 “I would like to move along”: JJC, 39.

  201 “I keep writing a story”: LJC, 155.

  201 “the theme of aging children”: JC to Cowley, Jan. 12 [1953], Newberry.

  202 “the rayon blanket tycoon”: LJC, 174.

  203 Fred had fired a secretary: author int. David Cheever, July 15, 2004.

  203–204 “by refusing to speak to her for a week or two”: JJC, 273.

  205 “[A]n extraordinary story”: WM to JC [c. April 1953], NYPL-MSS.

  205 “[She] kept chatting about American poetry”: JC to Clark, Aug. 12, 1953, CFP.

  205 “I'm going to go as the late Warren G. Harding”: GT, 77.

  205 Mary was “the seven-eyed Sybil”: LJC, 302.

  205 “wire-recording of the ‘strange tongues’ “: JC to Clark, Nov. 4 [1953], CFP.

  206 “comical character”: GT, 83.

  207 “homosexual concerns”: Bernard Glueck to SD, March 11, 1985, Swem.

  210 “no greater pleasure”: JC, “What Happened,” Understanding Fiction, ed. Cleanth Brooks and R. P. Warren (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1959), 572.

  211 “half-a-dozen particular favorites”: Vladimir Nabokov, Strong Opinions (New York: Vintage, 1990), 312.

  211 “I saw a script before we sailed”: JC to Boyers, Nov. 17 [1956].

  211 “I read in the newspaper”: CJC, 190. In the interview, Cheever uses the word “blandly” to describe his mother's dismissive tone of voice. Eleven years before, he'd recorded the exchange in his journal as follows: “I see that you've won a prize, she said. Yes, I said, I didn't write you because it isn't terribly important. I know it isn't she said harshly [my italics].”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN {1954–1956}

  212 “even if I were traveling … wrong direction”: LJC, 165.

  212 “Mary thinks that the University called”: ibid., 166.

  212 “wasn't a crime” to be a writer: author int. Piri Halasz, Sept. 3, 2004.

  213 “Most of the girls are so subtle”: JC to Clark [c. 1955], CFP.

  213 “There is no recorded instance”: SD int. Judith Sherwin, Jan. 18, 1985, Swem.

  213 “[it] takes the skin off your back”: CJC, 8.

  214 “It was an honor to be sitting there”: author int. Toby Stein, Nov. 29, 2004.

  214 “It's been my intention”: JC to Linscott [c. March 1953], Columbia.

  214 he found the genre “bankrupt”: LJC, 162.

  214 “take some situation like the one”: Cowley to JC, April 27, 1953, Newberry.

  214 “‘To my changeling son, Eben’ “: “The National Pastime,” New Yorker, Sept. 26, 1953, 29–35.

  215 “a model of wrongness”: JC to WM, July 14, 1953, NYPL-MSS.

  215 “a series of eddies and whirlpools”: WM to JC, Nov. 30, 1953, NYPL-MSS.

  215–216 “boarding-house widows, seaside girls”: JC, “Independence Day at St. Botolph's,” New Yorker, July 3, 1954, 18–23.

  216 “Having revised these lines as Gide”: JC, introduction (1965), WC, xvii.

  216 “So many of my plans”: JC to WM [c. Jan. 1955], Berg.

  217 “I wonder if any publisher will pay”: JC to Naomi Burton, June 3, 1955, Columbia.

  217 “Sally was reluctant”: author int. David Swope, June 30, 2004.

  217 “I am able to spend a good deal”: JC to Arthur and Stella Spear, June 30 [1955], papers of Pamela Spear Goff.

  217 “When we climbed back to the sand dune”: LJC, 162.

  217 “These old bones are for sale”: author int. Simon Michael Bessie, June 4, 2004.

  218 “I'm looking for John Cheever!”: HBD, 104.

  218 “ate roast beef and drank India Pale Ale”: MC, The Changing Landscape: A History of Briarcliff Manor–Scarborough (Kennebunk, Maine: Phoenix Publishing, 1990), 218.

  219 “As you can see from the letterhead”: JC to Herbst [c. Spring 1956], Yale.

  219 “While I was writing the book”: JC, introduction (1965), WC, xix.

  219 “because of an experience of sexual ecstasy”: author int. Paul Moor, Jan. 9, 2005.

  219 “[T]here is some love in our conception”: JJC, 47.

  219 “[H]aving lived much of my life”: LJC, 168.

  220 “I will not go to church”: JJC, 209.

  220 “I'd ask you to stay for dinner, Bill”: SD int. BC, Nov. 8, 1983, Swem.

  220 “sufficiently simple … gift shop”: HBD, 168.

  220 “a level of introspection”: quoted on The Dick Cavett Show, Oct. 1981, Daphne Productions.

  220 “There has to be someone“: GT, 278.

  221 “I am eating a capon”: JC to Herbst [c. Nov. 1954], Yale.

  221 “a regular boy”: JJC, 65–66.

  221 “Who told you?”: author int. Elizabeth Collins, May 2, 2004.

  222 “[A]lthough she was afraid of many things”: LJC, 175.

  222 “an ugly and useless obscenity”: JJC, 44.

  222 “The Chronicle was not published”: CJC, 99.

  222 A. J. Liebling wrote: Katharine White to JC, June 18, 1956, NYPL-MSS.

  222 “one of our most original”: White to Nadine Gordimer, Oct. 28, 1957, Lilly.

  223 “I guess you and I can look forward”: JC to Herbst [c. April 1956], Yale.

  223 “You yourself won, didn't you?”: author int. Joseph Caldwell, April 5, 2005.

  223 “I am crushed and miserable”: JC to Hannah Josephson [c. April 1956], Academy.

  224 “aimed straight at the cockles”: JC to Herbst [c. Oct. 1954], Yale.

  224 “I read the Sunday paper while Irwin”: JJC, 57.

  224 Cheever “kept putting it off “: John Weaver, “Recollections of a Childlike Imagination,” Los Angeles Times Book Review, March 13, 1977, 3.

  224 “The reason I told the dog about it”: GT, 90.

  224 “which should be spent on gin, shoes”: LJC, 180.

  225 “Bostonians, rocks, sunsets”: JC to Jean Stafford, June 26 [1956], Colorado.

  225 calling “Yoo hoo, yoo hoo”: LJC, 184.

  225 “The Greatest thing since War and Peace”: GT, 92.

  225 “well roared lion”: LJC, 179.

  225 “I don't expect to enjoy anything as much”: WM to JC [c. July 1956], NYPL-MSS.

  226 “between feeling alive”: JC to Emily Maxwell, April 5 [1957], Berg.

  226 “One of the most cheerful things”: White to JC, Aug. 20, 1956, NYPLMSS.

  226 “I seem to get nothing from Harpers”: JC to WM, July 30 [1956], Berg.


  227 “Harpers seemed to like it”: JC to White, Aug. 24, 1956, NYPL-MSS.

  227 “Bellow … first American novelist of parts”: SD int. Bessie, June 6, 1984, Swem.

  227 “Here is the blend of French and Russian”: JJC, 20.

  228 “had the experience … great art”: JC, presentation speech, Feb. 23, 1978, National Arts Club, CFP.

  228 “At dinner I am conscious”: JJC, 67.

  229 “I loved him”: SD int. Saul Bellow, July 10, 1984, Swem.

  229 “It fell to John”: Saul Bellow, eulogy, June 23, 1982, reprinted in American Academy of Arts and Letters, Proceedings (1982), 49–51.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN {1956–1957}

  230 “a cross between the Fall River Line”: JC to WM [c. Oct. 25, 1956], Berg.

  231 “to the noise of smashing flower vases”: JJC, 71.

  231 “Is this all … ?”: JC to Clark and R. P. Warren, Feb. 28 [1957], Swem.

  231 “Mary bought violets”: LJC, 191.

  232 “They talk gaily”: JC to WM, Nov. 10 [1956], Berg.

  232 “the dash of Roman men”: JJC, 69.

  232 “Scout camp”: ibid., 70.

  232 “There is only one chair in the salon”: LJC, 186.

  232 “impulsive or hasty guests”: JC to Biddle, Oct. 19 [1957?], LC.

  233 “a convent where they work the nose off her”: LJC, 189.

  233 Reviews of Stories: n.a., in Time, Dec. 3, 1956, 106–7; Richard Sullivan, in New York Times Book Review, Dec. 23, 1956, 121; William Peden, in Saturday Review, Dec. 8, 1956, 52; Orville Prescott, in New York Times, Dec. 5, 1956, 37.

  233 “The writers explained”: JC, “Authors’ Note,” in Stories (New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1956).

  234 “What a very nice idea!”: quoted in JC to WM [c. June 1955], NYPL-MSS.

  234 “raising great Biblical clouds of dust”: LJC, 192.

  234 “I Cheevers hanno bisogno di me”: Elizabeth Spencer to SD, Dec. 11, 1985, Swem.

  234 brutta figura: HBD, 112.

  235 “He studied the dictionary carefully”: ibid., 114.

  235 “Academy and unAcademy”: LJC, 187.

  235 “old 59th Street cross-town trolley cars”: GT, 95.

  235 Warren as an “academic charlatan”: JC to Laurens Schwartz, Oct. 28 [1975], Swem.

  236 “about as clear, sweet and blue-sky”: LJC, 194.

  236 cream-colored sedan: Michael Shnayerson, Irwin Shaw (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1989), 250.

  236 “Irwin stopped at the [Excelsior] desk”: LJC, 195.

  237 “arsehole jokes and golden piety”: JJC, 73.

  237 “She did this for two weeks”: JC to Emily Maxwell, April 5, 1957, Berg.

  237 “I went to the zoo for a Campari “: JC to Litvinov, March 8 [1968].

  237 found his wife “in great pain”: LJC, 201.

  237 “I don't ever remember loving”: JJC, 80–81.

  238 “a source of boundless pleasure”: ibid., 369.

  238 “Il Duce! Il Duce!”: LJC, 201.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN {1957}

  240 “Boston trust company”: JC to Edith Haggard [c. Nov. 1956], Columbia.

  240 “But dizzy with excitement”: JJC, 78.

  240 “the Albany Times-Union”: LJC, 197.

  240 Reviews of The Wapshot Chronicle: Maxwell Geismar, in New York Times Book Review, March 24, 1957, 5; Charles Poore, in New York Times, March 26, 1957, 31; Glendy Culligan, in Washington Post, March 24, 1957, E6; Fanny Butcher, in Chicago Sunday Tribune Book Review, March 31, 1957, 4; Winfield Townley Scott, in New York Herald Tribune Book Review, March 24, 1957, 1, 9; Granville Hicks, in New Leader, April 8, 1957, 21–22.

  241 “Where did [Cheever] get the confidence”: Foreword, WC (New York: Perennial Classics Edition, 2003), x.

  241 “a freedom to pursue their emotional lives”: JC to Frederick Bracher, July 15, 1962, Bancroft.

  242 “Perhaps you could have given”: Cowley to JC, Jan. 3, 1957, Newberry.

  242 “such a pig-headed fool”: LJC, 194.

  242 “One never, of course, asks is it a novel?”: JC, “An Exchange on Fiction,” New York Review of Books, Feb. 3, 1977, 44.

  245 “Mamie is reading the Washington Star”: JJC, 84.

  245 “a vaguely suggestive cover”: HBD, 176.

  246 “just to see how disgusting it was”: GT, 99.

  246 “She likes to take care of [Federico]”: JC to WM [c. May 1957], Berg.

  247 “The victim lay in a heap”: SJC, 309; see also JJC, 81.

  248 “just put … in a drawer somewhere”: JC to WM, June 7, 1957, NYPL-MSS.

  248 “write some more pieces”: WM to JC, July 8, 1957, NYPL-MSS.

  248 “Yes, the city is dangerous!”: JJC, 87.

  248 “When we arrived here”: JC to Peter and Ebie Blume [c. Aug. 1957], Swem.

  248 “When Ben walks down the street”: JC to WM [c. July 1957], Berg.

  249 “And it seems that we cannot reform”: JJC, 85.

  250 Cheever was left feeling “sick with love”: ibid., 144.

  250 “After having wondered”: ibid., 86.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN {1957–1959}

  251 “surly soft-ball games”: JC to WM, June 17 [1957], Berg.

  251 Melissa modeled after Narcissa: SD int. E. J. Kahn, June 10, 1984, Swem.

  251 an “Iagoesque nuisance”: LJC, 158–59.

  252 “I was awfully pleased to have The Wapshot Chronicle”: Narcissa Vanderlip to JC, Dec. 3, 1957, CFP.

  253 “In an upper-class gathering”: JJC, 87–88.

  253 “Some of the nicest people”: author int. Elizabeth Spencer, Jan. 6, 2005.

  253 “Root tee toot, ahhh root tee toot”: HBD, 105.

  253 “I love my colleagues”: JC to Schwartz, Oct. 28 [1975], Swem.

  253 “When I open my handkerchief drawer”: WM to JC, May 9, 1963, NYPL-MSS.

  254 “[W]hat is that old man doing?”: LJC, 212–13.

  254 “[H]e would make [one] feel”: Stephen Becker to SD, April 30, 1985, Swem.

  254 Cheever claimed to have been so appalled: JC to Bracher, June 25, 1963, Bancroft.

  254 “Mr. Ross would not have liked”: JC to White, March 15 [1958], Bryn Mawr.

  254 “at least three good friends”: GT, 103.

  255 “a gathering of nearly 1,000 writers”: New York Times, March 12, 1958, 26.

  255 “in a swift mutter that verged”: Becker to SD, April 30, 1985, Swem.

  255 “It is very gallant of you to come here”: JC, unpublished manuscript, Berg.

  255 “Randall Jarrell, who had just washed his beard”: GT, 104.

  256 “rivals but no superiors in the national literature”: Jonathan Yardley, “John Cheever's ‘Housebreaker,’ Welcome as Ever,” Washington Post, July 20, 2004, C01.

  256 Reviews of The Housebreaker of Shady Hill: Herbert Mitgang, in New York Times, Sept. 6, 1958, 15; William Peden, in New York Times Book Review, Sept. 7, 1958, 5; Richard Gilman, in Commonweal, Dec. 16, 1958, 320.

  257 “to keep a family of five in shoe-leather”: LJC, 214.

  258 “[It] doesn't work, everybody feels”: WM to JC, Nov. 5, 1958, NYPL-MSS.

  258 “I have not written so feebly”: JC to WM, Nov. 24, 1958, NYPL-MSS.

  258 “Drank too much; talked too much”: JC to Blumes, Oct. 30 [1958?], Swem.

  259 “dog-shit all over [his] rugs”: GT, 106.

  259 With a “kind of urgency in his voice”: author int. William Styron, Nov. 30, 2004.

  259 “I am a solitary drunkard”: JJC, 94.

  260 “I think tonight this fortress”: ibid., 104.

  260 he detected an “unearthly green light”: LJC, 213.

  260 “The most useful image”: quoted in Herbert Gold, ed., Fiction of the Fifties (Garden City, N.Y.: Dolphin Books, 1961), 22.

  261 “ ‘The Wrysons’ very bad”: JJC, 131.

  261 “in the company of a dozen faded roses”: JC to Clark and R. P. Warren, Jan. 1 [1959], Yale.

  261 “Mary's lo
ve of me does not seem to include”: GT, 107–8.

  261 “He seems to me an unusually gifted young man”: JC to Mr. Lemay, Dec. 15 and 31 [1958], Ransom.

  262 “the shaven armpits of the poor girls”: JC to WM [c. Dec. 1958], Berg.

  262 “I thought … ‘There must be more’ “: JU, More Matter (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), 764.

  262 “It was nice while you were away”: See F, 28.

  263 “I [used to] sit at a table”: FLC Jr. to JC, Dec. 22, 1967, PJC.

  263 “corporate freeze”: FLC Jr. to Sarah Cheever, Feb. 22, 1972, PJC.

  263 “stupid and impenetrable smile on his face”: JJC, 100.

  264 “What are you doing?“: author int. Halasz, Sept. 3, 2004.

  265 “He was happy, high-spirited, and adored”: JJC, 107.

  265 “I look up … Alcoholics Anonymous”: ibid., 112.

  CHAPTER TWENTY {1959–1960}

  266 he'd throw an “insane tantrum”: JJC, 126.

  267 “some gossip about Philadelphia”: ibid., 96.

  267 “she cannot, quite understandably, face this”: ibid., 103.

  267 “This is the best“: JC to WM [July 1959], Berg.

  268 “I began to wave my arms and yell: ‘Lennieee, Lennieee’ “: GT, 114.

  269 “another seedy-looking plane”: JC to Biddle, Sept. 13 [1959], LC.

  269 “to everyone's astonishment”: LJC, 220.

  270 “When Winter died in 1959”: TT, 61.

  270 Cheever described it as a “big blowout”: JC to Biddle [c. Oct. 1959], LC.

  270 “Winter is dead”: JC to WM, Oct. 22, 1959, NYPL-MSS.

  270 “Susie is in the throes of adolescence”: JC to Warrens, Jan. 1 [1959], Yale.

  271 “pushing at the sandwich tables”: JC to Biddle, April 30 [1960], LC.

  271 “still and patient and watchful”: JC to Michael Janeway [c. Sept. 1958].

  271 “Susie comes home with the news”: JJC, 124–25.

  272 “Ben, poor Ben, bore the brunt”: FC to SC, June 28, 1983, CFP.

  274 “rigid with indignation”: GT, 125.

  274 “What I claim to feel”: JJC, 141.

  274 “When I was seven years old”: LJC, 329.

  274 “We'd go outside”: BC, “The Boy They Cut,” in Coaches: Twenty-Five Writers Reflect on People Who Made a Difference, ed. Andrew Blauner (New York: Warner Books, 2005), 199–210.