Author
John Cheever
Birth Date
May 27, 1912
(70 Years)
Death Date
June 18, 1982
Associated Country
United States
John Cheever (1912–1982) was an American novelist and short story writer, often called the “Chekhov of the suburbs” for his insightful portrayals of middle-class life in the United States. He was born in Quincy, Massachusetts and later became closely associated with the suburban communities of the East Coast, which frequently served as the setting for his fiction. His work explores themes such as social conformity, personal dissatisfaction, and the hidden struggles beneath seemingly comfortable lives.
Cheever is best known for his short stories, many of which were published in The New Yorker and later collected in The Stories of John Cheever (1978), a volume that won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. He also wrote several novels, including The Wapshot Chronicle (which won the National Book Award) and its sequel The Wapshot Scandal, as well as Falconer (1977).
Throughout his career, Cheever was praised for his elegant prose and ability to capture both the beauty and unease of modern life. Today, he is considered one of the most important American writers of the 20th century, particularly for his mastery of the short story form.
Cheever is best known for his short stories, many of which were published in The New Yorker and later collected in The Stories of John Cheever (1978), a volume that won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. He also wrote several novels, including The Wapshot Chronicle (which won the National Book Award) and its sequel The Wapshot Scandal, as well as Falconer (1977).
Throughout his career, Cheever was praised for his elegant prose and ability to capture both the beauty and unease of modern life. Today, he is considered one of the most important American writers of the 20th century, particularly for his mastery of the short story form.
Books
The Wapshot Scandal 2011
Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Cheever shares the further adventures of the Wapshot clan, which for generations has called the New England village of St. Botolphs home. Now, though, the family is...
John Cheever, best known for his short stories dealing with upper-middle-class suburban life, was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 1912. Cheever published his first short story at the age of...
A revealing self-portrait: In addition to his novels and short stories, John Cheever wrote a prodigious number of letters—sometimes thirty in a week. In The Letters of John Cheever , edited and...
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author's journals provide peerless insights into the creation of his novels and stories. But they are equally the record of a complex, often dark, always closely observed...
The Stories of John Cheever brings together a wide-ranging collection of short fiction that captures the rhythms and contradictions of mid-20th-century American life. Set largely in suburban...
Falconer 1992
In a nightmarish prison, out of Farragut's suffering and astonishing salvation, Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Cheever crafted his most powerful work of fiction. Only Cheever could deliver these...
Bullet Park 1992
Welcome to Bullet Park, a township in which even the most buttoned-down gentry sometimes manage to terrify themselves simply by looking in the mirror. In these exemplary environs Pulitzer Prize winner...
Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Cheever's final novel is a fable set in a village so idyllic it has no fast-food outlet and having as its protagonist an old man, Lemuel Sears, who still has it in...