John Cheever | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | John William Cheever May 27, 1912 Quincy, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died | June 18, 1982 (aged 70) Ossining, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation |
|
| Period | 20th century |
| Genre | Short story, fiction |
| Literary movement | Symbolism |
| Years active | 1935–1982 |
| Notable works | |
| Notable awards | Pulitzer Prize (1979) National Book Critics Circle Award (1981) |
| Spouse |
Mary Winternitz (m. 1941) |
| Children | |
John William Cheever (May 27, 1912 – June 18, 1982) was an American short story writer and novelist. He is sometimes called "the Chekhov of the suburbs".[1][2] His fiction is mostly set in the Upper East Side of Manhattan; the Westchester suburbs; old New England villages based on various South Shore towns around Quincy, Massachusetts, where he was born; and Italy, especially Rome. His short stories included "The Enormous Radio", "Goodbye, My Brother", "The Five-Forty-Eight", "The Country Husband", and "The Swimmer", and he also wrote five novels: The Wapshot Chronicle (National Book Award, 1958),[3] The Wapshot Scandal (William Dean Howells Medal, 1965), Bullet Park (1969), Falconer (1977) and a novella, Oh What a Paradise It Seems (1982).
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 (as evoked by the mythical St. Botolphs in the Wapshot novels), characterized by abiding cultural traditions and a profound sense of community, as opposed to the alienating nomadism of modern suburbia.
A compilation of his short stories, The Stories of John Cheever, won the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and a National Book Critics Circle Award, and its first paperback edition won a 1981 National Book Award.[4][a]
On April 27, 1982, six weeks before his death, Cheever was awarded the National Medal for Literature by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His work has been included in the Library of America.
- ^ Foderaro, Lisa W. (July 21, 2014). "Home of Cheever, Chekhov of the Suburbs, Is for Sale". The New York Times. Retrieved November 11, 2015.
- ^ Chilton, Martin (October 15, 2015). "John Cheever: 'the Chekhov of the suburbs'". The Daily Telegraph. UK. Retrieved November 11, 2015.
- ^ "National Book Awards – 1958". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-14.
(With essay by Neil Baldwin [1] Archived October 19, 2015, at the Wayback Machine from the Award's 50-year anniversary publications and from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.) "National Book Awards 1958". Archived from the original on October 19, 2015. Retrieved February 9, 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) - ^ "National Book Awards – 1981". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-14.
With essays by Willie Perdomo, Matthew Pitt, and Robert Wilder from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.
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