The letters of John Cheever

by John Cheever

John Cheever, novelist, short-story writer, and winner of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, was "an American master" (The Boston Globe). He was also a prolific writer of letters, sending as many as thirty in a week.These letters, culled from thousands written to famous writers, his family, friends, and lovers, paint an intimate and surprising self-portrait that is as vivid as any character Cheever invented.Edited and annotated by his son Benjamin, Cheever's letters trace his development as a writer and as a man. They reveal him to be complex, flawed, and full of contradictions. On display are not just his ambitions and weaknesses, or his cloaked bisexuality, but the evolution of his wit and style -- and most of all, his immense love of life.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography

397 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

John Cheever was an American novelist and short story writer, sometimes called "the Chekhov of the suburbs" or "the Ovid of Ossining." His fiction is mostly set in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the suburbs of Westchester, New York, and old New England villages based on various South Shore towns around Quincy, Massachusetts, where he was born.

His main themes include the duality of human nature: sometimes dramatized as the disparity between a character's decorous social persona and inner corruption, and sometimes as a conflict between two characters (often brothers) who embody the salient aspects of both--light and dark, flesh and spirit. Many of his works also express a nostalgia for a vanishing way of life, characterized by abiding cultural traditions and a profound sense of community, as opposed to the alienating nomadism of modern suburbia.

Reviews

[El · Rating 4 out of 5]

I come from a long line of secret-keepers, of shredders, of thrower-awayers. At 35 I don't know much about my family, other than what has been chosen by individuals to share with me, and that's not a lot. In college, I chose to incorporate the history of my family (both sides) into fiction and poetry as my final project, and while I began an annual tradition of spending a few days in the summer with my dad's parents, I still managed to not find out a whole lot. I'd ask questions and would be met with comments like, "Oh, that couldn't possibly interest you" or "Maybe after Price is Right."

I continued to visit my grandmother after Grandpa died in 2005. The house was the same, but filled with a different sort of sound - the Bose stereo in the kitchen incessantly playing country music replaced the sound of game shows Grandpa used to watch on the TV in the living room. Grandma started making grunting noises to herself, clearing her throat, sort of humming. I presume it's her way of filling the silence after years of having Grandpa's voice dominate her world.

At one of my visits to Grandma a couple years ago, she pulled out an old cardboard Tootsie Roll box that used to belong to Grandpa. She had found it while cleaning out an old cupboard. Inside the box were black and white photographs Grandpa had saved over the years, some going as far back as his childhood. At the bottom were some patches he had saved from his time in the Navy, a ring from who-knows-where, and a few other items from his life. "I thought you'd be interested in this," Grandma said. But then she wanted to throw some of the photos away, the ones she didn't approve of: some disturbing images from the war, some ex-girlfriends, some that she just didn't understand. Later, after she had gone to bed, I went into the trash and pulled them all out. I saved them because they were important to Grandpa and therefore they're important to me and because I don't have much that belonged to Grandpa and I understand even less about him and because I don't like people telling me that what's not important to them must not be important to me as well.

I write all of this because these things were on my mind the entire time I read this collection of John Cheever's letters. The letters were compiled and edited by his son Benjamin, and when possible Ben would include brief descriptions about the people and circumstances his father referred to in his letters. Ben talked with many of his father's friends after he had died and it was thanks to these people that these letters exist. John himself never saved copies of any of the letters he had written and would throw away the majority of the letters he received from other people. Had his friends, lovers, and other family members not saved what they received from him, this collection would never have been.

The letters show a side of Cheever that I haven't seen in the collection of short stories that I've been reading, but also add to my enjoyment of the stories on the side. Cheever wrote to and about other writers (Dorothy Parker, Katherine Anne Porter, John Updike, Malcolm Cowley, Allan Gurganus, just to name a few), his life, his family, his love of dogs, his love of Russia, his later trouble with alcoholism, his bisexuality, his cancer. They show a side of American history that I can't know because I didn't live through the 50s, 60s, and came in too late in the 70s to be able to claim that I lived through the 70s. His letters range from amusing to melancholy to heartbreaking, and I imagine reading these as his family would have been even better and harder in ways I can't entirely understand because I don't have that experience with my family.

As my parents get older, knowing them as I do, I understand that few personal items will make their way to me down the line. In high school or college I remember my mom had started to go through some of the things from her past, and she sat and showed me some items - photos, letters from ex-lovers, a short story a friend wrote that was inspired by her - but she refused to let me keep any of it. I believe it was all destroyed at that time because that's how she is. She wasn't trying to be mean, but her privacy is important to her, as my privacy is important to me - but we're on separate levels. At least that's what I tell myself. But I am my mother's daughter, so certainly as I get older, I'm sure my own shredding spree will happen. It just did during our last move, in fact. I threw away a lot of letters and photos involving my ex-boyfriend or old friends that are now either dead or we've gone different directions in our lives, and it was freeing in a way I never anticipated.

Maybe that's the point.

Grandma has just moved into an independent living facility over the past month. We realized after the fact that during her move, she and one of my uncles threw away a lot of Grandpa's personal items - all of his military records, letters, awards, and I assume photographs as well - are all gone now. Grandpa was a proud man and his accomplishments meant a lot to him. I find it hard to believe that he would have expected those things to wind up in the bottom of a trash bag and ultimately in a landfill.

But, again, Grandma doesn't understand the importance of things like that, she's not a sentimental person. And, therefore, since they weren't things she understood, she also couldn't understand how anyone could possibly be interested in any of it.

When I talked to her on her birthday in April and she told me about moving out of their house and into a facility I reminded her to please save the photographs and letters and things like that, the family-history stuff. She chuckled and told me she loved me. But she never actually said that she would save anything for me.

[Adabelle Xie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The biggest highlight for me as a fan of Cheever's work was getting a look into his own thoughts on his creative process and output. From the outside we often think of writing as this grand endeavor of art with a capital A. But for Cheever it was also a job that had to generate an income to pay for house repairs and family vacations to Cape Cod.

[Joan Colby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cheever’s letters are witty, engaging and warm, quite unlike the Cheever revealed in his journals, who was a man consumed with self-loathing and guilt mainly due to his bisexuality. The letters though, edited by his son Ben, who is frank in his assessment of his father, are a delight to read and must have been an equal delight to receive. Many letters were lost, as Cheever himself did not keep copies and only a small number of his correspondents did. Many were to Josie Herbst a longtime friend, who ultimately sold the letters to Yale for a goodly sum with the blessing of Cheever. I love letters and journals which are written more spontaneously and immediately than memoirs or autobiographies.

[Ted Savage · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the letters from his retriever to his parents.

[Sofía Bracamonte · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Cheever me tiene deslumbrada, este año concluire de leer toda su obra y arrancaré en inglés. Porque lo que escribe y como lo escribe me parece trascendente. Es tan difícil hacer lo que hace y se puede ver en sus diarios y en este ejemplar como las ideas permean su vida, lo atraviesan y se vuelven ficción. Lean a Cheever.

[Richard Jespers · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of letters from the 1930s to 1982 is as much about the editor, John Cheever’s eldest son, as it is about the senior writer. So many times in reading a compendium of letters, one is left alone to solve certain puzzles the letters may contain. For most letters Benjamin Cheever glosses events, dates, but most important, personalities, and by doing so he allows readers a deeper view into his father’s letters, his father’s life, the life of their family: John Cheever’s wife, Mary; daughter Susan, Benjamin, and a second son Fred (born Federico in Italy).

Having read Cheever’s journals some years ago, I again encountered his wicked wit, in which he slices humanity a new asshole but also a humane man who loves that very flawed humanity and is kind enough to portray his characters that way. For the wicked sense of humor: “About a month ago Mary took a job teaching English at Sarah Lawrence two days a week and so she journeys out to Bronxville on Tuesday and Fridays and comes home with a briefcase full of themes written by young ladies named Nooky and Pussy” (124). Or this, with a scintilla of rage: “I got back to work on the book about a month ago, but was dealt some crushing financial blows three weeks later and now I’m back in the short story business. I want to write short stories like I want to fuck a chicken” (125). And a cat story: “The cat, after your leaving him, seemed not certain of his character or his place and we changed his name to Delmore which immediately made him more vivid. The first sign of his vividness came when he dumped a load in a Kleenex box while I was suffering from a cold. During a paroxysm of sneezing I grabbed for some kleenex [sic]. I shall not overlook my own failures in this tale but when I got the cat shit off my face and the ceiling I took Delmore to the kitchen door and drop-kicked him into the clothesyard” (235). But ultimately, as I said, Cheever loves humanity and declares as much by way of a Time magazine interview chronicling his career: “My sense of literature is a sense of giving not diminishment. I know almost no pleasure greater than having a piece of fiction draw together disparate incidents so that they relate to one another and confirm that feeling that life itself is a creative process, that one thing is put purposefully upon another, that what is lost in one encounter is replenished in the next, and the we possess some power to make sense of what takes place” (240). Now for the sex part of this profile: Editor Ben, eldest son to Cheever, discovers that his father is not bisexual in a furtive shameful sort of way but has had sexual-emotional relationships with many different men over his lifetime. Cheever’s letters attest to having done the deed with (grad student of Cheever’s) Allan Gurganus (about his son’s age) and photographer Walker Evans about whom he tells this story: “When I was twenty-one Walker Evans invited me to spend the night at his apartment. I said yes. I dropped my clothes (Brooks). He hung his (also Brooks) neatly in a closet. When I asked him how to do it he seemed rather put off. He had an enormous cock that showed only the most fleeting signs of life. I was ravening. I came all over the sheets, the Le Corbusier chair, the Matisse Lithograph and hit him under the chin. I gave up at around three, dressed and spent the rest of the night on a park bench near the river” (304).

I must say that I admire not only John Cheever’s literary abilities but his zest for life, an enthusiasm he did not relinquish until the day he died.

[Duke Cullinan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eh. John Cheever's letters would be pretty cool if it weren't for the existence of his wonderful stories, and, most importantly, his *journals*. Having read a decent chunk from his journals (New Yorker-issued), the letters are (by comparison) weak and often pro forma. Much, much listing goes on here: 'the leaves are turning, the dog turned over a trash can, you're missing the autumn light, I drank too much last night, Mary is fine, I thank you for your spirit and support . . .' A lot of box-checking, as letters tend to comprise. However, not compelling reading.

In fact, the most interesting parts of the book were the standard expository interstitials written by his son (who edited the book). With the exception of Cheever's fairly graphic love/lust letters to a couple of male paramours, his correspondences feel restrained and filtered by the normal burdens of social propriety - not much more than pleasant dinner table conversation.

[Ernesto Castro Herrera · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leer estas cartas es leer el avance del estilo literario del autor a través de su vida. ¡Amé cuando su sentido del humor brilló en toda su ironía!

[Inés Arteta · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Spanish, for Otra Parte Semanal: https://www.revistaotraparte.com/otra...

[JoeAnn Hart · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been great fun reading about Susan Cheevers life through her father's eyes.