by John Cheever
EDGAR, FRIENDSHIPS, OPTIMISM: Benidt, “Conversations,” p. 10; interview Ben Cheever and Janet Maslin, 8 November 1983; Susan Cheever, HOME BEFORE DARK, pp. 148–49; JC to William Maxwell, 31 January 1982; interview Arthur Spear, 19 July 1983; Saul Bellow to JC, 9 December 1981; Malcolm Cowley, “Novelist’s Life,” pp. 15–16; Geoff Walden, “Illness Aside, Cheever Full of Surprises,” OSSINING CITIZEN REGISTER, April 1981, p. A12; JC to Allan Gurganus, 10 February 1982; JC to James McConkey, 31 March 1982; JC quoted in Susan Cheever, “My Father’s Life,” p. 172.
ENDINGS
SHADY HILL KIDNAPPING, HOME: THE SHADY HILL KIDNAPPING, produced by Ann Blumenthal, directed by Paul Bogart, written by JC, shown 12 January 1982 as the opening production of AMERICAN PLAYHOUSE; interview Paul Bogart, 11 February 1985; interview Father George W. Hunt, 29 June 1984.
PARADISE: Interview Allan Gurganus, 16 September 1984; interview Robert G. Collins, 26–27 September 1985; Gilder, “Affirmation,” p. 18.
NATIONAL MEDAL CEREMONY: Interview Max Zimmer, 19 July 1984; William Styron, presentation speech, April 1982; interview Father George W. Hunt, 29 June 1984; JC, “A Page of Good Prose,” quoted in Edwin McDowell, “ABOUT BOOKS AND AUTHORS,” NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, summer 1982; JC quoted in Susan Cheever, HOME BEFORE DARK, p. 234.
LITERATURE AND ITS USES: JC quoted in Hunt, HOBGOBLIN, p. xi; Gioia et al., interview with JC, 23 January 1976; Hersey, “John Hersey Talks,” p. 22; John Hersey to SD, 22 July 1984; JC, “Mailer’s ‘Song,’” CHICAGO TRIBUNE BOOK WORLD, 7 October 1979, p. 1; JC, “My Friend, Malcolm Cowley,” NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, 28 August 1983, p. 18; JC quoted in Michiko Kakutani, “In a Cheever-like Setting, John Cheever Gets MacDowell Award,” NEW YORK TIMES, 11 September 1979, p. C7; Brans, “Stories to Comprehend,” p. 338.
COMPARISONS: Robert A. Morace, “Long-Distance Thoughts on ‘Cheever Studies,’” paper read at Northeast Modern Language Association meeting, March 1986; Eugene Chesnick, “The Domesticated Stroke of John Cheever,” NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY, December 1971, pp. 531–32; John W. Crowley, “John Cheever and the Ancient Light of New England,” NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY, pp. 551–52; Updike compares the penultimate paragraph of PARADISE with the end of WALDEN in his letter to JC, 15 November 1981; Elizabeth Hardwick, “Cheever, or the Ambiguities,” NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS, 20 December 1984, p. 3; Samuel Coale, “Cheever and Hawthorne: The Romancer’s Art,” CRITICAL ESSAYS, pp. 193–209; Saul Bellow, “On John Cheever,” p. 38; interview T. Coraghessan Boyle, 11 February 1985.
FITZGERALD CONNECTION: Barbato, interview with JC, 27 October 1978; interview Bernard Malamud, 18 January 1985; John Updike, tribute at memorial service, 22 June 1982; Elizabeth Hardwick, “The Family Way,” NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS, 6 February 1964, pp. 4–5; Stanley Kauffmann, “Cheever, Fitzgerald, Hemingway,” WILSON LIBRARY BULLETIN, May 1965, 766–67; John le Carré to MC, 27 June 1982; JC, “F. Scott Fitzgerald,” ATLANTIC BRIEF LIVES, ed. Louis Kronenberger (Boston, 1971), pp. 275–76.
WILL TO LIVE, MARY, HUMOR: Interview MC, 6 June 1983; interview Ben Cheever, 19 October 1984; Leahy, “Mary,” p. 10.
LAST VISITS: Interview Raphael Rudnik, 18 January 1985; interview Allan Gurganus, 16 September 1984; interview Steve Phillips, 23 October 1984; interview Ben Cheever, 19 October 1984; interviews Max Zimmer, 27 June 1984, 19 July 1984, and 25 July 1984; Max Zimmer journal.
FINAL DAYS, DEATH: Interview MC, 26 July 1984; interview Roger and Maureen Willson, 29 July 1984; interview Saul Bellow, 10 July 1984; Susan Cheever, HOME BEFORE DARK, pp. 234–35; Merrill, “Everyday Haunts,” p. 34; interview Ben Cheever, 19 October 1984.
NORWELL SERVICE, BURIAL: Interview Jane Cheever Carr, 27 September 1983; Allan Gurganus to Pauline Hanson, July 1982; Coale, “Portrait,” pp. 1–2; mimeographed schedule of memorial service, First Parish of Norwell, 22 June 1982; Federico Cheever, remarks at memorial service, 22 June 1982; interview Allan Gurganus, 16 September 1984; John Updike, tribute at memorial service, 22 June 1982; interview Max Zimmer, 27 June 1984; interview Susan Cheever, 16 January 1985; John Hersey to MC, 23 June 1982.
OSSINING SERVICE, CONDOLENCES: Geoff Walden, “Area Remembers Man Who Loved Ossining,” OSSINING CITIZEN REGISTER, 20 June 1982; “Ossining Loses Literary Treasure,” OSSINING CITIZEN REGISTER, 22 June 1982; interview Robert Cowley, 21 June 1984; Saul Bellow, “On John Cheever,” p. 38; Burton Benjamin, remarks at memorial service, 23 June 1982; Eugene Thaw, remarks at memorial service, 23 June 1982; John Updike to JC, 11 December 1981; “John Cheever,” BOSTON GLOBE, 22 June 1982, p. 18; Raphael Rudnik journal, late June 1982; Malcolm Cowley to MC, 28 September 1982.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is based on interviews and correspondence with those who knew John Cheever well; on his published writings, a few of his journals, and several fragmentary typescripts; on more than a thousand letters he wrote, along with a smaller number of letters written to him; and on discussions of the man and his work in memoirs, recorded interviews, and articles and books.
About 170 interviews yielded both information and insights, and I am grateful to those who were kind enough to talk with me, often at considerable length and sometimes on several occasions, about their memories and impressions of John Cheever: Vassily Aksyonov, Shana Alexander, Marion Ascoli, Lauren Bacall, Stephen Becker, Saul Bellow, Aline Benjamin, Burton Benjamin, Anne Bernays, Connie Bessie, Simon Michael Bessie, Dr. LeClair Bissell, Ebie Blume, Peter Blume, Ann Blumenthal, Paul Bogart, Susan Boyd, Mimi Boyer, Philip Boyer, T. Coraghessan Boyle, John Bukovsky, Hortense Calisher, Henry Carlisle, Jane Cheever Carr, Hayden Carruth, Burnham Carter, Susan Carter, Raymond Carver, Bev Chaney, Jr., Ben Cheever, Federico Cheever, Mary Cheever, Susan Cheever, Robert Chibka, Barrett Clark, Eleanor Clark, Jane Clark, Dennis Coates, May Collins, Robert G. Collins, Molly Malone Cook, Malcolm Cowley, Muriel Cowley, Robert Cowley, John Crutcher, John Dirks, Mary Douglas Dirks, Candida Donadio, Nina Engel, Don Ettlinger, Katrina Ettlinger, Frederick Exley, Dorothy Farrell, Leonard S. Field, Daniel Fuchs, Sue Fuchs, John C. Gerber, Tom Glazer, Robert Gottlieb, Allan Gurganus, Pauline Hanson, Curtis Harnack, Dr. David S. Hays, Shirley Hazzard, John Hersey, Sandra Hochman, James Holmes, Eugenia Hotchkiss, Joseph W. Hotchkiss, Father George W. Hunt, Lee Hyla, Elizabeth Janeway, Dr. Frank Jewett, Dr. Robert A. Johnson, E. J. Kahn, Jr., Virginia Rice Kahn, Justin Kaplan, Eugene Kennedy, Carol Kitman, Donald C. Lang, David Lange, Hope Lange, John Leggett, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, John Leonard, Frances Lindley, Tanya Litvinov, Elizabeth Logan, Robert F. Lucid, William H. Luers, Morris Lurie, Norman Mailer, Ann Malamud, Bernard Malamud, Janet Maslin, Iole Masullo, Ruth Maxwell, William Maxwell, James McConkey, Mary McNeil, Margaret M. Mills, Ted Mills, Lucy Miner, Peggy Murray, Dr. Raymond Mutter, Edward Newhouse, Charles Newman, Anne Palamountain, Frank Perry, Lila Refrigier, Don Reiman, Ginger Reiman, Natalie Robins, Ned Rorem, Philip Roth, David Rothbart, Raphael Rudnik, Dudley Schoales, Dudley Schoales, Jr., Grace Schulman, Dr. Marvin L. Schulman, Philip Schultz, Laurens R. Schwartz, Nellie Shannon, Charles Shapiro, Judith Sherwin, Rick Siggelkow, Joan Silver, Dr. J. William Silverberg, Dave Smith, Gray Smith, Arthur P. Spear, Stella Spear, Anthony Spencer, Sara Spencer, Susan Spencer, Gayatry Spivak, George Starbuck, Francis Steegmuller, Richard G. Stern, Ezra Stone, Sally Swope, Clayre Thaw, Eugene V. Thaw, James Valhouli, Dr. D. J. Van Gordon, Aileen Ward, Robert Penn Warren, Lillian H. Wentworth, Hazel Hawthorne Werner, Margot Wilkie, Alan D. Williams, Maureen Willson, Roger Willson, Will Wyatt, and Max Zimmer.
Among those whose letters have been invaluable in helping to fill in the gaps are Rollin Bailey, Helen Barolini, Stephen Becker, Livingston Biddle, Peter Blume, William S. Boice, Mimi Boyer, Philip Boyer, Frederick Bracher, Josiah Bunting III, Hortense Calisher, Hayden Carruth, Bev Chaney, Jr., Federico Cheever, Mary Cheever, Eleanor Clark, David Clarke, Samuel Coale, Hennig Cohen, Robert G. Collins, Blanche W. Cook, Malcolm Cowley, Robert C. Daugherty, Robert L. deVeer, James Dickey, Mary Douglas Dirks, Dean B. Doner, Frederick Exley, Sherry Farquharson, Daniel Fuchs, Dr. Berna
rd C. Glueck, Gordon Godfrey, Dana Gioia, Allan Gurganus, Ron Hansen, Hugh Hennedy, John Hersey, L. Rust Hills, Sarah Irwin, Dr. Robert A. Johnson, Eugene Kennedy, X. J. Kennedy, John Leggett, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, Frances Lindley, Tanya Litvinov, Bernard Malamud, Jerre Mangione, William Maxwell, James McGraw, Paul Moor, E. W. Nash, Edward Newhouse, James O’Hara, Grace L. Osgood, Anne Palamountain, David C. Robertson, Jr., Raphael Rudnik, Stephen Sandy, Nora Sayre, Laurens R. Schwartz, Arthur P. Spear, Elizabeth Spencer, Leonard Spigelgass, George Starbuck, Wallace Stegner, Richard G. Stern, Caskie Stinnett, Lewis Turco, John Updike, James Valhouli, Gore Vidal, Aileen Ward, Larry Watson, Mary Weatherall, John D. Weaver, Lillian H. Wentworth, and Beatrice Wood.
Some of those named above have been kind enough to let me see copies of their letters from Cheever. In addition, I am indebted to a number of major research libraries for the opportunity to read portions of his correspondence. Particular acknowledgment goes to Margaret M. Mills and Nancy Johnson of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters; Victor A. Berch of the Brandeis University library; Bonnie Hardwick of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley; Maggie Fusco of the Regenstein Library, University of Chicago; Nora J. Quinlan of the University of Colorado at Boulder library; Bernard R. Crystal of the Butler Library, Columbia University; Dolores Altemus of the University of Delaware library; Elizabeth Ann Falsey of the Houghton Library, Harvard University; Carolyn A. Sheehy of the Newberry Library; Lola L. Szladits of the Berg Collection, New York Public Library; Carolyn A. Davis and Kathleen Mainwaring of the George Arents Research Library, Syracuse University; and Steve Jones of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
In his later years Cheever was frequently interviewed. Sessions in recorded or printed form with Joseph Barbato, Bruce Benidt, Jo Brans, John Callaway, Dick Cavett, Susan Cheever Cowley, Robert Cromie, Dana Gioia, Millicent Dillon, Michael Stillman, Annette Grant, John Hersey, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, Lewis Nichols, Christina Robb, Jaqueline Tavernier-Courbin and Robert G. Collins, James Valhouli, and Will Wyatt have been extremely useful.
The most important book dealing with Cheever’s life is Susan Cheever’s Home Before Dark, a sensitive memoir that provides fascinating quotations from his journals and letters. Scholarly books on his work have been written by Samuel Coale, Father George W. Hunt, and Lynne Waldeland. Robert G. Collins has edited a collection of critical essays, and written some of the ablest criticism himself. Others who have done first-rate articles on Cheever’s fiction include Frederick Bracher, John W. Crowley, Robert Morace, Stephen C. Moore, and James O’Hara. Doctoral dissertations by Dennis Coates and James Valhouli proved of particular value, partly because of the authors’ friendship with Cheever. Reminiscences by Samuel Coale, Malcolm Cowley, and Dana Gioia provided intimate glimpses into Cheever’s personality. David Rothbart’s World War II journal, Laurens Schwartz’s journal covering the mid-1970s, and Max Zimmer’s journal of 1981–82 furnished essential background data and contributed significant perceptions.
Assistance was also rendered by a number of people in ways not easily categorized. Among these benefactors are Harold S. Crowley, Jr., Robin Dougherty, Carl Dolmetsch, Judith Ewell, James L. Greenfield of the New York Times, Thomas Heacox, H. Hobart Holly and Doris Oberg of the Quincy Historical Society, Charles M. Holloway, David F. Morrill, Emil P. Moschella of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, DeLois L. Ruffin of the U.S. Department of State, Lee S. Strickland of the Central Intelligence Agency, Gene vonKoschembahr of the Smithers Alcoholism Rehabilitation Center, and Aileen Ward and the members of the Biography Seminar of the New York Institute for the Humanities. A grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities financed a year of the four years’ work that went into the making of the book. In the summer of 1984, Arthur and Stella Spear were kind enough to rent us their home in Briarcliff Manor while they made their annual pilgrimage to Maine. During those warm-weather months, living just four miles from Cheever’s home, I talked to a number of his closest friends and began to get acquainted with the territory. A research grant from the College of William and Mary subsidized that summer’s work, and the college has been generous since in allowing me time to write. David Raney stayed with the project through the last year, bringing his literary intelligence to the mundane task of getting the book down on paper. Vivian Donaldson’s encouragement kept me going at times when it would have been easy to stop.
Finally, John Cheever: A Biography would not have been possible without the cooperation of the author’s widow and executor, Mary Cheever. She submitted to long hours of questions, suggested additional sources, and opened a number of doors—as, for example, to her husband’s literary friends and his doctors and psychiatrists—that might otherwise have remained closed.
None of the people listed above is in any way culpable for errors of fact or interpretation in this biography.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
After graduating from Yale, SCOTT DONALDSON received his master’s degree and Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota. He served in the Far East during and after the Korean War and then began a ten-year career in the newspaper business as reporter, editor and publisher.
Since 1966, he has been affiliated with the College of William and Mary and became the Louise G. T. Cooley Professor there in 1984. He is the author of Poet in America about Winfield Townley Scott; By Force of Will, about Hemingway; and Fool for Love, about F. Scott Fitzgerald. He lives in Williamsburg, Virginia.
Scott Donaldson’s literary biographies are Poet in America: Winfield Townley Scott (1972); By Force of Will: The Life and Art of Ernest Hemingway (1977); Fool for Love, F. Scott Fitzgerald (1983); John Cheever: A Biography (1988); Archibald MacLeish: An American Life (1992), winner of the 1993 Ambassador Book Award for biography; and Hemingway vs. Fitzgerald (1999). His career in the field to 1990 is chronicled in the Dictionary of Literary Biography volume on American Literary Biographers: DLB, 111 (1991): 53–64.
Donaldson has written many articles on twentieth century American literature and culture, and edited a number of books, including Critical Essays on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” (1984); Conversations with John Cheever (1987); New Essays on “A Farewell to Arms” (1990); and the Cambridge Companion to Hemingway (1996).
After beginning his career as a newspaper reporter and editor in his native Minneapolis, Donaldson taught at the College of William and Mary for 26 years, retiring as Louise G.T. Cooley Professor of English in 1992. He served as a Fulbright senior lecturer in Finland (1970–1971) and Italy (1979). He was the Bruern fellow at the University of Leeds (1972–1973) and a visiting fellow at Princeton (1978). He received awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support the writing of his Cheever and MacLeish biographies (1984–1985 and 1990–1991), as well as a semester for research grants from William and Mary in 1975, 1981, and 1988. Other awards have come from the Rockefeller foundation (1982) and the MacDowell Colony (1980, 1981). In 1994 He was listed among prominent Virginia authors by the Virginia Center for the Book. In 1996 he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, given the MidAmerica award for contributions to Midwestern literature, and chosen as an honorary member of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Society. In 1999 he won the Monroe K. Spears prize for the best essay of the year in Sewanee Review.
Donaldson was a founding director of the Fulbright Alumni Association. In 1999 he was elected to the board and became treasurer of the Ernest Hemingway Society & Foundation; in 2000 he was elected president of the organization.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
Originally published by Random House.
Copyright © 1988, 2001 by Scott Donaldson
ISBN: 978-1-5040-2995-7
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