A sympathetic and illuminating account of the stories of John Cheever, and the intersecting life and work of the legendary writer John Cheever, as told by his eldest daughter.
Bestselling author Susan Cheever chronicles our national love affair with liquor, taking a long, thoughtful look at the way alcohol has changed our nation's history. This is the often-overlooked story of how alcohol has shaped American events and the American character from the seventeenth to the twentieth century.
Biography
"She's put together a smart and readable portrait of this artist as a seemingly perpetual young man whose adult years were filled with personal despair, jumbled politics, a mix of anti-Communism, polite anti-Semitism and American self-actualization as well as family heartbreak." --Alan Cheuse on NPR
"As a biography of one of the most humane and beneficial Americans who ever lived, it is a national treasure."
--Kurt Vonnegut
Literary History
Transcendentalism--the story behind the scenes.
Addiction
"A short, steamy read."
--New York Post
Novels
Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1989
Houghton Mifflin, 1982. Paperback: Random House, 1983.
Simon & Schuster, 1981. Paperback: Ballantine Group: 1982.
Simon & Schuster, 1980. Paperback: Fawcett, 1982.
Memoir
Raising wonderful children in a difficult world
A poignant memoir of a man driven by boundless genius and ambition.
"Engrossing and remarkably devoid of self-flagellation."
--Seattle Weekly
"Ms. Cheever's. . . coolly intelligent perspective. . . provides a clear, hard-edged picture of the snobbery, sexism, anti-Semitism adultery, alcoholism, and emotional dishonesty that were part and parcel of those swimming pools and tennis courts."
--Wall Street Journal