Cheever

by Blake Bailey

  528 “[T]he piece is shapeless and self-indulgent”: Atlantic editorial memo, Dec. 29, 1975, courtesy of Michael Janeway.

  529 “Intoxicated by the news”: Dana Gioia, “Meeting Mr. Cheever,” Hudson Review 39, no. 3 (Autumn 1986), 421.

  530 “All writers suffer terribly from delusions”: LJC, 319.

  531 “He gets out. Farragut gets out”: CJC, 128.

  531 “I think the work is successful”: JJC, 321.

  531 “nearly run over by Donald Lang”: JC to Gurganus, April 23 [1976].

  531 “[didn't] really give a shit”: JC to Coates, May 4 [1976].

  532 “It's not very often”: McGrath to Donadio, May 25, 1976, NYPL-MSS.

  532 “[he] screams a lot, says blah blah blah”: JC to Weaver, June 2 [1976], CFP; the remark is deleted from the letter published in GT, 264.

  532 “My discontents are quite simple”: JC to Donadio, Feb. 17 [1977], Swem.

  532 “I am the sort of iconoclast”: LJC, 322.

  532 “one of the dandy little apartments”: FLC Jr. to David Cheever [c. April 1976?].

  532 “Just back from a fine visit with John”: FLC Jr. to David Cheever, April 25, 1976.

  533 “Fred, I killed you in my novel”: LJC, 321.

  533 “He seems … to be suffering a loneliness”: JJC, 321–22.

  533 “Yes, yes, Louisa Hatch did the flowers”: LJC, 320.

  534 “Some clinician would say”: JJC, 324.

  534 “He was … a colleague“: ibid., 323–24.

  534 “He is forty-three”: JC to Cowley, April 24, 1976, Newberry.

  535 “In yesterday's mail I was cordially invited”: LJC, 355.

  535 “most interesting writer of his generation”: Michael J. Bandler, “… a Conversation with the Storyteller,” Chicago Tribune, Oct. 22, 1978, sec. 7, p. 1.

  535 “Updike's fourth-rate novel”: LJC, 353.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE {1976–1977}

  536 “such a striking example of egocentricity”: GT, 263.

  536 “more readily appreciated”: JC to Vance Bourjaily, July 19, 1976, Bowdoin College Library.

  536 “an amiable guide who liked to play backgammon”: GT, 267.

  536 “In Romania one drives mostly on such roads”: JC, “Romania,” Travel & Leisure, March 1978, 87.

  537 “[T]he Customs man threatened to confiscate”: JC to Schwartz, Aug. 7 [1976], Swem.

  537 “You are … a bore”: JC to MZ, April 23 [1977].

  538 “went cock-a-hoop over the handlebars”: JC to Gurganus [c. Nov. 1976].

  538 “looping red trail eight miles long”: Philip Schultz, “The Eight-Mile Bike Ride,” in The Holy Worm of Praise (New York: Harcourt, 2002), 52–53.

  539 “quite humorous and innocent”: JJC, 327.

  539 “love of one's neighbor” was a virtue: JC to Sara Spencer, July 4 [1976], Swem.

  541 a man “no longer young”: Stephen Sandy to SD, Sept. 22, 1984, Swem.

  541 “I got into the tub and pretended”: JJC, 335.

  541 “For the master I'll come for bus fare”: author int. James McConkey, Feb. 26, 2005.

  541 “the Budd Schulberg of New England”: JC, “The Melancholy of Distance,” in Chekhov and Our Age, ed. James McConkey (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Center for International Studies, 1984), 127.

  542 “I can find nothing in Chekov to quote”: JC to Gurganus, Nov. 30 [1976].

  542 “I'm taking the bus!”: author int. Frederica Kaven, Feb. 26, 2005.

  543 “some true newness to it”: JC to Cowley, Jan. 1 [1977], Newberry.

  543 “Cheever's getting out of a seminar”: author int. MZ, Dec. 12, 2004.

  543 “none of the attributes of a sexual irregular”: JJC, 343.

  544 “difficulty in knowing who the real Max was”: SD int. Dave Smith, Jan. 30, 1985, Swem.

  544 “It is a story about a man who allies”: JC to MZ, n.d.

  545 Zimmer felt a “slight hardness”: MZ, journal, April 20, 1982, courtesy of MZ.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO {1977}

  547 “Firstly this is a no-shit friendship”: JC to MZ, Feb. 24 [1977].

  547 the “taste of [Hope's] lipstick”: JC to MZ [c. Feb. 1977].

  547 “That a man of sixty-four”: JC to MZ, Feb. 23 [1977].

  547 “I don't want to get into your pants”: JC to MZ, March 1 [1977].

  549 “extraordinarily good detail”: Bernard Malamud to JC [c. Dec. 1976], Ransom.

  549 “There is some spiritual ungainliness”: JC to Malamud, Dec. 14 [1976], Ransom.

  549 didn't “seem to [him] all of a piece”: Cowley to JC, Nov. 17, 1976, Newberry.

  549 “Well, I expected the best”: Bellow to JC, Nov. 23, 1976, Swem.

  550 “I didn't want them to think I was a rube”: GT, 277.

  550 “Three golden retrievers lie”: SC, “A Duet of Cheevers,” Newsweek, March 14, 1974, reprinted in CJC, 121–29.

  551 Reviews of Falconer: John Gardner, in Saturday Review of Literature, April 2, 1977, 20–23; R. Z. Sheppard, in Time, Feb. 28, 1977, 79–80; John Leonard, in Harper's, April 1977, 88–89; Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, in New York Times, March 3, 1977, 31; Joan Didion, in New York Times Book Review, March 6, 1977, 1, 22–23.

  551 Time had “shit on [the book]”: GT, 279.

  551 “[Leonard] is sympathetic”: JC to Lehmann-Haupt, Nov. 20 [1976], BU.

  552 “It doesn't seem fitting”: JC to Lehmann-Haupt, May 1 [1977], BU.

  552 “I have neglected to thank you”: JC to Donadio, Nov. 27 [1977], Swem.

  553 she'd “gone completely insane”: JC to Schwartz, April 26 [1978], Swem.

  553 “The lesson let us help one another”: HBD, 39.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE {1977}

  560 “Is your father a homosexual drug-addict?”: Jesse Kornbluth, “The Cheever Chronicle,” New York Times Magazine, Oct. 21, 1979, 29.

  560 “numerous occurrences of homosexual material”: Robert Towers, in New York Review of Books, March 17, 1977, 3–4.

  560 the sound of his “fruity accent”: JC to Valhouli, Dec. 14 [1977], Swem.

  561 “I'm having a marvelous time”: JC to Gottlieb, March 16, 1977, Swem.

  561 “I'd be honored”: SD int. John Crutcher, June 22, 1985, Swem.

  561 “Mary plans to appear”: GT, 280.

  561 “demonstrating a food-chopper”: JC to MZ, April 14 [1978].

  561 “My name is John Cheever”: CJC, 139.

  561 “cordial but shy”: Peter Benelli to Lillian Wentworth, Aug. 13, 1982, Thayer.

  562 return to Thayer and “snatch a smoke”: Lillian Wentworth, “And Recalled,” Parents League of New York Review, 1984, 1.

  562 “a delegation of Bulgarians”: quoted in GT, 283.

  562 “the naive optimist”: John Koster, “John Cheever Reads, FDU Listens,” Bergen Record, Sept. 28, 1978, C8.

  562 “the first western writer to defect”: HBD, 157.

  562 “Bulgaria seems quite dark”: LJC, 337.

  562 “You may have forgotten what I am like”: JC to Litvinov, April 4 [1977].

  563 “we embrace and shout in unison”: Arthur Unger, “John Cheever's Long View,” Christian Science Monitor, Oct. 24, 1979, 17.

  563 “stupidity and clumsiness and brutality”: CJC, 79.

  563 he “unbuttoned his vest and cut a fart”: GT, 284.

  563 “What political or social significance”: JC to Litvinov, June 23, 1977.

  564 “We kissed the mayor”: GT, 287.

  564 “Saroyan will be the only one”: Gore Vidal to SD, Oct. 16, 1984, Swem.

  564 “Women are jealous”: Samuel Coale, “Portrait of John Cheever,” Swem.

  565 “If I sounded sinister yesterday morning”: JC to MZ, April 29 [1977].

  565 “That one is in conflict with oneself”: CJC, 158.

  565 “Brooding, as I must, about homosexuality”: LJC, 335.

  566 “I love you because so much green[n]ess”: JC to MZ [c. May 1977]; the remark is deleted from the letter published
in LJC, 336–37.

  566 he can “kiss Jody passionately, but not tenderly”: F, 122.

  567 “bearass I look like something”: JC to MZ, Oct. 20 [1977].

  567 “I was delighted to be free of the censure”: JJC, 347.

  567 “Anyone who caressed”: ibid., 335.

  567 “he suffers acutely from the loss of gravity”: LJC, 339.

  567 “to engage one's interest in the welfare”: JC to MZ [c. Aug. 1977?].

  568 “something I first got”: JC to MZ [c. July 1977].

  568 “The contempt you bring to this cast”: LJC, 357.

  568 “With a stiff prick I can read”: JC to James Holmes, March 25, 1979, courtesy of Ned Rorem.

  568–569 “We would rent a quaint Vermont farmhouse”: JC to MZ, May 24 [1977]; the passage is deleted from the letter published in LJC, 337.

  569 Max was getting “the wretch treatment”: Rudnik to Cheevers, Aug. 30, 1977, CFP.

  569 “Your description of your love for Marilyn”: published, with deletions, in LJC, 340.

  569 “I'm determined that this should end happily”: JC to MZ, Nov. 20 [1977].

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR {1977–1978}

  571 “for the first time I feel somewhat estranged”: JC to MZ [c. Aug. 1977].

  571 “returning to the banks of the Iowa River”: JC to Leggett, Sept. 17, 1977, Swem.

  572 “I love to see it sitting there”: author int. Daniel Halpern, Nov. 16, 2004.

  572 “Your psychiatrist and mine can't be the same”: JC to Halpern, Nov. 27 [1977], NYPL-MSS.

  573 “Some of the Russians”: JC to Cowley, March 1, 1978, Newberry.

  573 “I wonder what it feels like to die”: SD int. Bev Chaney, Jr., June 26, 1984, Swem.

  573 “He hinted at the indifference of his marriage”: JJC, 344.

  573 “I would try to buy myself time”: e-mail from MZ to author, Aug. 2, 2006.

  574 “After spending a night”: JC to MZ [c. Feb. 1978].

  574 “Neither of us is homosexual”: LJC, 341.

  575 “Old Cheever … has gone Gay”: quoted in HBD, 208.

  575 “Every woman needs a man who's a friend”: SD int. Palamountain, July 17, 1985, Swem.

  575 “ ‘That,’ Anne said sternly, ‘is a purely platonic’ “: JC to MZ, May 24 [1977]; this passage is deleted from the letter published in LJC, 337.

  576 wanted to pursue “as a lark”: Arthur Unger, “John Cheever's Long View,” Christian Science Monitor, October 24, 1979, 18.

  576 “[spoke] only with a British accent”: Richard F. Shepard, “WNET to Do Plays by US Novelists,” New York Times, Feb. 8, 1979, C13.

  576 “I'm really working on the WNET show”: LJC, 342.

  576 writers who were also “acceptable” candidates: Herbert Mitgang, “Saul Bellow Taking Laureateship Lightly,” New York Times, Nov. 14, 1976, 73.

  577 protested as “outrageous”: Cowley to Members of the Nominating Committee for the Gold Medal in the Short Story, Feb. 5, 1978, Newberry.

  577 “spread the honors around”: Richard Wilbur to Cowley, Feb. 20, 1978, Newberry.

  577 “The difficulty may be with Bill Maxwell”: JC to Cowley, March 1, 1978, Newberry.

  577 “This has remained somewhat on my conscience”: WM to SD, April 10, 1985, Swem.

  578 “ ‘I recall … that at the time of my first novel’ “: Jesse Kornbluth, “The Cheever Chronicle,” New York Times Magazine, Oct. 21, 1979, 29, 102.

  580 “John Cheever, the flesh and blood person”: Dennis Edward Coates, “The Novels of John Cheever,” unpublished dissertation, Duke University, 1977, 11.

  580 “My congratulations on having completed”: JC to Coates, May 16, 1978.

  581 “Oh he's totally discredited”: SD int. R. G. Collins, Sept. 27, 1985, Swem.

  581 “To have been expelled from Thayer Academy”: JJC, 348.

  581 “revolting invasion of publicity”: Israel Shenker, “Solzhenitsyn, in Harvard Speech, Terms West Weak and Cowardly,” New York Times, June 9, 1978, A8.

  581 “Aleksandr brought up the rear”: LJC, 344.

  582 “Your letter was so circumspect”: JC to MZ, March 13, 1978.

  582 “I don't really know you at all”: LJC, 342.

  582 “Robert Anderson wrote Tea and Sympathy“: Laurens Schwartz to SD, March 26, 1986, Swem.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE {1978–1979}

  583 “Why do you want to do that?”: author int. Gottlieb, June 16, 2004.

  584 “totally forgotten some of them”: Paul Gray, “Inescapable Conclusions,” Time, Oct. 16, 1978, 125.

  584 “The parturition of a writer”: SJC, vii.

  585 Reviews of The Stories of John Cheever: Paul Gray, in Time, Oct. 16, 1978, 122, 125; William McPherson, in Washington Post Book World, Oct. 22, 1978, E1, 6; John Leonard, in New York Times, Nov. 7, 1978, 43; Anne Tyler, in New Republic, Nov. 4, 1978, 45–47; John Irving, in Saturday Review, Sept. 30, 1978, 44–46; John Gardner, in Chicago Tribune Book World, Oct. 22, 1978, 1; Robert Towers in New York Review of Books, Nov. 9, 1978, 3–4; Richard Locke, in New York Times Book Review, Dec. 3, 1978, 3, 78.

  586 “At the risk of sounding pious”: Diane White, “John Cheever: Finding Classic Themes in Ordinary Life,” Boston Globe, Nov. 28, 1978, 21.

  587 “Yesterday afternoon Mrs. Vincent Astor”: JC to Weaver, Oct. 22 [1978]; this sentence was deleted from the letter published in GT, 294–95.

  587 “bask[ing] … in that fragrance of beaver”: LJC, 352.

  587 “an easy time talking to women”: SD int. Lauren Bacall, Jan. 17, 1985, Swem.

  587 “I think Betty [Bacall] has got me mixed up”: JC to SC, Jan. 13 [1979], Berg.

  587 Your mother … garp should have won: JC to SC, Feb. 2 [1979], Berg.

  588 “wiping the steam off a windowpane”: JC to MZ, Nov. 1 [1978].

  588 “I suspect that my tastes “: JC to grants committee, Jan. 15, 1979, Academy.

  588 “I don't mean style; I mean voice”: JC to Roth, Sept. 17 [1977], LC.

  589 “A book comes, of which I'm the subject”: JJC, 355.

  589 “We have never sat at the kitchen table”: GT, 298.

  589 “He is a most judicious”: JC to SC, Dec. 31 [1978], Berg.

  589 “My enthusiasm for you three is boundless”: JC to SC, Sept. 6 [1978], Berg.

  591 “I never showed my father anything”: HBD, 214–15.

  591 “We have both agreed that fiction”: JC, “My Daughter, the Novelist,” New York, April 7, 1980, 53.

  591 “You finished the marathon?”: LJC, 357.

  592 “a day for athleticesthetic celebration”: Jim Morse, “A Happy Twist to Cheever Chronicle,” Boston Herald American, April 18, 1979.

  592 “I never believed in my childhood days”: Paul Williams, “John Cheever: Adding Luster to the Stream,” Patriot Ledger, April 18, 1979.

  592 “[T]his has involved”: JC to MZ [c. May 1979].

  593 “On Friday I did an ABC tape”: JC to MZ, Jan. 6, 1979.

  593 Rorem was “the only homosexual”: Ned Rorem, The Nantucket Diary (New York: North Point, 1987), 233–35.

  594 “I like to remember”: JC to Holmes, April 4, 1979, courtesy of Ned Rorem.

  594 “That the pleasure I take in Jim's company”: JC to Rorem, March 3, 1979.

  594 “I think I am not particularly susceptible”: JC to Holmes, April 12, 1979, courtesy of Ned Rorem.

  594 “large orgasims” [sic]: JC to Holmes, Feb. 28, 1979, ibid.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX {1979}

  596 “this is the first time … view of the park”: quoted in Henry Allen, “John Cheever: Capturing the Splendors of Suburbia,” Washington Post, Oct. 8, 1979, A1, B13.

  596 “Some people seem to have a gift”: quoted in John Firth, “Talking with John Cheever,” Saturday Review, April 2, 1977, 23.

  597 “he developed another smile for cameras”: HBD, 37.

  597 “There are people who consider me”: CJC, 243.

  598 “I've never been any great shakes”
: JC to McLoone [c. Jan. 1967], Georgetown University Library.

  598 “knock it off about that poetry stuff “: author int. Anne Bernays and Justin Kaplan, Feb. 19, 2005.

  599 “basking in the reflected light”: Spear to Litvinov, March 9, 1979, courtesy of Pamela Spear Goff.

  600 “boisterous, leggy, badly bred dog”: HBD, 147.

  600 “When [s]he wakes me, late at night”: ibid., 148.

  600 “gritty enclave … Sing Sing”: Martha Smilgis, “The Dark Moments of His Life Rival—and Perhaps Inspire—John Cheever's Stories,” People, April 23, 1979, 78–79.

  600 “Paradise on earth”: Ossining Citizen Register, April 23, 1979.

  601 “I think … about the town I came from”: JC to Denney [c. March 1935?], Dartmouth.

  601 “the village kind of life”: Susan Merrill, “The Everyday Ossining Haunts of John Cheever,” Patent Trader (Mount Kisco, N.Y.), March 14, 1986, B12–13, 34.

  602 “Unidentified Flying Object”: LJC, 323.

  602 “I couldn't wait when I'd see him, I'd run out”: Merrill, “Everyday Ossining Haunts,” B13.

  602 speaking of “spiritual things”: SD int. John Bukovksy, July 5, 1984, Swem.

  603 “That I will endorse as you please”: Stephen Sandy to SD, Oct. 8 [1984], Swem.

  603 “I'm terribly sorry,” said Cheever: author int. Martin Amsel, April 24, 2004.

  604 “I think we do not know one another”: JJC, viii.

  604 “He had two great fears about me”: LJC, 327.

  604 “I didn't quite get it”: JJC, ix.

  604 a kind of “shorthand”: LJC, 328.

  605 “If the water was right and the tide ebbing”: JC to MZ [c. June 1979].

  607 Susan “sometimes had a flicker of wondering”: HBD, 209.

  609 “If you would write your fucking homework”: JC to MZ, Sept. 27 [1979].

  609 reminded Cheever “a little of Beckett”: JC to MZ [c. Aug. 1977?].

  609 “It reads like a streak”: WM to JC, Aug. 22, 1962, NYPL-MSS.

  610 “It was written by a guy out fishing”: e-mail from MZ to author, Dec. 18, 2004.

  610 “I hope Max Zimmer”: McGrath to JC, March 6, 1980, NYPL-MSS.