Cheever, John

Cheever, John (1912–1982), Massachusetts author whose formal schooling ended and literary career began with expulsion from Thayer Academy, the subject of his first story, published in 1930. His many stories since then, frequently dealing satirically with affluent New Englanders living in suburbia, have often appeared in The New Yorker and have been collected in The Way Some People Live (1943), The Housebreaker of Shady Hill (1958), Some People, Places and Things That Will Not Appear in My Next Novel (1961), The Brigadier and the Golf Widow (1964), and The World of Apples (1973). The Wapshot Chronicle (1957), an episodic novel about the comically raffish lives of a wealthy Massachusetts family during the first half of the 20th century, was given a National Book Award. Its sequel, The Wapshot Scandal⧫ (1964), continues the tale of the family decline in their hometown, St. Botolph. His third novel, Bullet Park (1969), also depicting a suburban family, is a firmer‐structured work, more satirical and more of a morality story. Falconer (1977), a later novel, deals with an ex‐professor's experiences as an inmate in Falconer Prison, and is a story of human redemption. Oh What a Paradise It Seems (1982) is a novella about an aging man who is rejuvenated by an unusual romance and who uses his new energies to save the landscape of the area where he lived as a boy. His Uncollected Stories were published in 1988, and his Letters appeared the same year.