'Like a kiss; it can't be done alone.'

 

“The need to write comes from theneed to make sense of one's life and discover one's usefulness.” –  JohnCheever

 

Born on this date in 1912, Americannovelist and short story writer John Cheever has been recognized as one of themost important short fiction writers of the 20th century.  Acompilation of his mid-life writing, The Stories of John Cheever,won the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the National Book Award and a NationalBook Critics Circle Award.  His novel The Wapshot Chronicle also won the National Book Award.

 

A “natural” writer, he wrote hisfirst short story and was published while still a teenager.  Afterdropping out of high school, he took a job as a caretaker at a New Yorkartist’s colony, continued writing and had a number of works published inprominent magazines like The New Yorker.   

 

In the late ’30s he worked for thegovernment’s Writer’s Project before enlisting in the Army during World War II,when he had his first book of short stories published.  Ultimately hebecame a chronicler of both his times and the people he encountered, and waslauded for his keen, often critical, view of the American middle class.

               

Always cognizant of his readingpublic and what they liked, he once said, “I can't write without a reader. It'sprecisely like a kiss - you really can't do it alone.”