by Blake Bailey
453 “Thirty years ago”: JJC, 278.
453 “Not often … and I can't remember the names”: CJC, 52.
453–454 “Oh, she writes about men, women, children”: ibid., 253.
454 “I have sometimes complained, husband”: MC, “Gorgon,” in The Need for Chocolate and Other Poems (New York: Stein and Day, 1980), 18–19.
455 “Paranoia: The New Urban Life Style”: Richard Todd, “Gathering at Bunnymede,” Atlantic Monthly, Jan. 1972, 86–88.
455 “Not since I came into my inheritance”: author int. Herbert Gold, March 5, 2005.
455 “Saul appeared from the clouds”: JC, presentation of Gold Medal of Honor to Bellow at National Arts Club, Feb. 23, 1978, CFP.
456 “and ate Homeric feasts”: JC, “Melancholy of Distance,” 129.
456 “If you think”: GT, 220.
457 “[I] kept ducking into closets, toilets, etc.”: JC to Exley, July 13 [1972], Rochester.
457 “The flight back from Moscow is painful”: JJC, 280.
457 Zinny's last days: author int. Sarah Stevenson, Dec. 6, 2004, and Annie Thom, Nov. 29, 2004.
458 “I'd like you to meet”: SD int. Tom Glazer, Oct. 27, 1983, Swem.
458 “What has happened to this place”: JJC, 281.
459 “I have entertained John Cheever”: Mary Dirks to “Beloved Friends,” Sept. 10, 1972, Swem.
459 “Both Susie and I grant [Federico]”: LJC, 293–94.
460 “Lang called me from jail”: ibid., 283.
461 convinced the two were “emotionally involved”: SD int. Donadio, June 15, 1984, Swem.
461 “by getting pissed and falling down”: JC to MZ, April 23 [1977].
461 “He just burned himself out”: Author int. John Dirks, May 9, 2004.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR {1972–1973}
462 “The long speech I have prepared”: JJC, 289.
462 “Hey! There's John Cheever!”: NFB, 123.
462 “Sauced, I speculate on a homosexual romance”: JJC, 285.
463 “I think I'd be perfectly capable of killing”: quoted in Frederick Exley, “That Place,” unpublished essay, Rochester.
463 “You'll be able to lift it to the sound of outboard motors”: CJC, 52.
463 “I breakfast on scotch and Librium”: JC to Exley, July 13 [1972], Rochester.
463 “[A]fter his last story in The New Yorker”: JC to grants committee, Jan. 22, 1969, Academy.
463 “didn't find Exley up to his reviews”: Felicia Geffen to JC, Jan. 29, 1969, Academy.
464 “[Cheever] sat on his pompous ass”: e-mail from Tina Bourjaily to Carol Sklenicka, June 1, 2004.
465 “Hoarseness is not … symptom of Clapp”: GT, 223.
465 “That was great fun”: LJC, 288.
465 “I don't know what to do about this house”: ibid., 289.
465 “Feed me to the pigs”: Roger Skillings, journal, April 27, 1973, courtesy of Roger Skillings.
465 “easier to get to Egypt”: author int. Molly Cook and Mary Oliver, Feb. 14, 2005.
465 “a kind of nightmare”: Skillings to Stanley Kunitz, April 17, 1973, courtesy of Skillings.
467 “a slim collection of the ten stories”: HBD, 180–81.
467 Reviews of The World of Apples: Thomas R. Edwards, in New York Review of Books, May 17, 1973, 35; Ronald De Feo, in National Review, May 11, 1973, 536–37; Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, in New York Times, May 10, 1973, 43; L. Woiwode, in New York Times Book Review, May 20, 1973, 1, 26; D. Keith Mano, in Washington Post Book World, July 1, 1973, 1, 10.
468 “Apples seems to have done much better”: JC to James Valhouli, July 14, 1973, Swem.
468 “All the cardiologists and internists”: author int. Ray Mutter, May 12, 2004.
469 “Oxygen: No Smoking”: JC to Donadio, May 29 [1973], Swem.
469 “‘Are you completely without imagination’ “: LJC, 293.
470 “This brought the cops”: GT, 225.
470 “Don't be silly”: Jack Leggett to SC, June 24, 1982, CFP.
470 the whole “Death in Venice plot”: SD int. Frank Jewett, June 29, 1984, Swem.
470 “Why did you go and tell ‘The Boots’ “: HBD, 165.
470 “There is a sinister shrink in the wings”: GT, 225.
470 his heart did a “clog dance”: JC to Arthur Spear, June 4 [1973], courtesy of Pamela Spear Goff.
472 “The gin bottle, the gin bottle”: JJC, 290–91.
472 “I'm not at all sure what I'm getting into”: JC to Coates, Aug. 23, 1973.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE {1973}
473 “He explained the American Academy”: Ron Hansen to SD, June 25, 1984, Swem.
474 “when we bring off a seminar”: LJC, 297.
474 “We were a bunch of ragtag hippies”: author int. T. Coraghessan Boyle, July 6, 2004.
475 “If that character is supposed to be gay“: author int. Hansen, July 10, 2004.
476 “Look in my closet”: author int. “Elaine Moody,” August 10, 2004.
476 “Ah yes, I loved your book”: Michael Ryan, “Meeting Cheever,” in God Hunger (New York: Viking, 1989), 12–13.
477 “Whatever you do … don't let him drink“: author int. Richard Bausch, July 8, 2004.
477 “I left Iowa never expecting to see him again”: GT, 230.
477 The “tangible world” was receding: Sarah Irwin to SD, July 18, 1984, Swem.
478 “I shout myself hoarse at football games”: LJC, 297.
478 “Fellatio is the nicest thing”: author int. Sarah Irwin, Oct. 11, 2004.
479 “One way I can find out if I like something”: CJC, 42.
480 “exercising marital rights”: SD int. Leggett, April 28, 1985, Swem.
481 “We part the student and the teacher”: JJC, 293.
481 “His third marriage, her first”: E-mail from Gurganus to author, June 5, 2004.
481 “[Allan] flirts with me”: JJC, 293.
482 “a truck-driver or master-sergeant type”: author int. Leggett, May 23, 2004.
482 “[T]he clerk was just unlocking the front door”: Raymond Carver, Fires (Santa Barbara, Calif.: Capra Press, 1983), 199.
482 “I'd be very happy to tell the Guggenheims”: JC to Ray Carver, Aug. 2 [1977], courtesy of Carol Sklenicka.
482 “The woman was called Miss Dent”: Raymond Carver, “The Train,” in Cathedral (New York: Random House, 1989), 147–56.
483 “Do you know, Mr. Donleavy, that no major“: Ed Dinger, ed., Seems like Old Times (Iowa City: Iowa Writers’ Workshop, 1986), 114–16.
483 “Julius Fuck Street”: LJC, 283.
483 “drab commie suit”: author int. Petru Popescu, Nov. 1, 2004.
483 “earthly paradise”: Spear to Litvinov, Nov. 28, 1973, courtesy of Pamela Spears Goff.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX {1974}
486 “she hurled at me the fact”: GT, 233.
487 “She's already married! To me!”: TT, 159.
488 “I love you … I write an advertisement”: JJC, 294, 296.
488 “never taken a story about a homosexual”: LJC, 302.
488 “That was one of the nicest things”: JC to WM [c. March 1974], Berg.
488 “kindest thing anybody's ever done”: Dwight Garner, “The Salon Interview: Allan Gurganus,” Salon (www.salon.com/books/int/1997/12/cov_si_08Gurganus).
488 “the modesty of [his] demands”: LJC, 303.
489 “appreciate the excellence of your character”: JC to Gurganus, March 21 [1974].
490 “a metaphor for something mysterious”: JC, “The Leaves, the Lion-Fish and the Bear,” Esquire, Nov. 1974, 110–11, 192–93, 195–96.
491 Esquire had offered “three thousand for anything”: JC to Gurganus, April 16 [1974].
491 homosexuality “understandable and valid”: SD int. MZ, July 25, 1984, Swem.
491 “[I]n my considered opinion”: JC to Stathis Orphanos, May 18, 1979, CFP.
491 it felt “like a gift”: author int. Dennis Coates, April 26, 2004.
/> 492 “Your crack about my being unloved”: JC to Coates, June 10 [1974].
493 ex-husband … found it “kind of appalling”: SD int. Rob Cowley, June 20, 1984, Swem.
493 Warren Hinckle … a “wretched buffoon”: JC to Weaver [c. Sept. 1974], CFP; the remark is deleted from the letter published in GT, 237.
493 “People stop me on the street and ask”: JC to Cowley, Oct. 1 [1972], Newberry.
493 “He would look hangdog”: author int. Lehmann-Haupt and Robins, Aug. 15, 2004.
493 his son called him a “shit”: JC to Coates, April 6 [1974].
494 “Why don't you divorce him?”: author int. “Elaine Moody,” Aug. 10, 2004.
494 “[Elaine] is sulking in Maine”: JC to Coates, Aug. 13 [1974].
494 “On return home to a tense emotional atmosphere”: Phelps admission report, Aug. 20, 1974, PRM.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN {1974}
495 Kenmore Square (“part student, part slum”): LJC, 307.
495 “end up penniless and naked”: GT, 237.
495 “I start with the Lief Ericson [sic] monument”: JC to Dirkses, Sept. 11 [1974], Swem.
496 “He hasn't sent me a thing”: Laurens Schwartz, journal, Swem.
496 “the last pages in Proust”: author int. Rick Siggelkow, July 1, 2004.
496 found the administration “quite mysterious”: JC to Coates, Sept. 11 [1974].
496 “I did not rise to the occasion”: George Starbuck to SD, Oct. 28, 1983, Swem.
497 students “responsive and contentious”: JC to Coates, Oct. 4 [1974].
497 “It's a found object”: author int. Christopher Gresov, July 24, 2005.
497 “Submit it to a New York publisher”: author int. Oakley Hall III, June 23, 2005.
498 “had a tendency to walk out … nude”: author int. Schwartz, June 21, 2004.
499 “We were intimate but not close”: John Malcolm Brinnin to SD, May 9, 1984, Swem.
499 “Should I not remember you”: JC to Brinnin, Sept. 2, 1978, Delaware.
499 “as if a drink that was merely single”: OJ, 119.
499 “conspicuous ego clash”: LJC, 308.
499 “Updike never calls me”: Schwartz to SD, March 26, 1986, Swem.
500 “heavily grated corner emporium”: OJ, 118.
500 Valhouli … found them “incoherent”: SD int. Valhouli, Oct. 15, 1984, Swem.
500 “Vesuvian maternalism”: LJC, 308.
501 “She's going to marry a chap”: El Borracho [Ivan Gold], “Message in a Bottle,” Boston magazine, Jan. 1985, 82.
501 “I'd had trouble dissuading him”: LJC, 307.
502 “Communications Time–peddler, 1970”: FLC Jr.'s alumnus file, Dartmouth.
502 “Dear Mr. Nixon (sic)”: FLC Jr. to Richard M. Nixon, June 18, 1970, PJC.
502 “no weltgeist, no historical perspective”: FLC Jr. to John D. Ehrlichman, Nov. 11, 1972, PJC.
502 “a college drop-out way back in 1926”: FLC Jr. to Perry Knowlton, July 20, 1970, Columbia.
502 “potentially an excellent manuscript”: Gerald McCauley, Curtis Brown reader, report on Who Are the Revolutionaries?, Columbia.
503 “Honolulu is on my itinerary”: FLC Jr. to David Cheever, July 15, 1970.
503 “Perhaps I've delineated in non-fiction”: FLC Jr. to Knowlton, July 21, 1970, Columbia.
503 “I would hope that it would make McLuhan”: FLC Jr. to JC, Aug. 30, 1970, PJC.
503 “or whatever part of that”: FLC Jr. to JC, Sept. 14, 1970, PJC.
503 “covered the same ground”: FLC Jr. to Knowlton, Oct. 16, 1970, Columbia.
503 “Perhaps … ‘it should be published’ “: Knowlton to FLC Jr., April 30, 1971, Columbia.
503 “there is a kind of destiny”: FLC Jr. to Sarah Cheever, Feb. 22, 1972, PJC.
503 “Poor Fred began to drink again”: JC to Coates, May 23 [1974].
504 “funny and very relevant”: FLC Jr. to David Cheever, Oct. 19, 1974.
505 Sexton, whom Cheever found “aggressive”: LJC, 308.
505 “visceral distaste”: author int. Ivan Gold, Sept. 21, 2004.
505 “Did they overhear that?”: Diane Wood Middlebrook, Anne Sexton: A Biography (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991), 394.
505 Cheever “never quite got over this”: LJC, 310.
505 she'd “never been so happy”: JC to Coates, Oct. 14 [1974].
505 “Susie said … rather bad show”: JC to Coates, Dec. 2 [1974].
505 “extraordinarily bleak” room at Phelps: CJC, 65.
506 “you have a father who is dying”: LJC, 294.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT {1975}
507 “straight asshole”: LJC, 308–9.
507 “opportunity to ask John Updike“: author int. David Frieze, March 20, 2005.
508 “I've written more goddamn words”: Dean Doner to SD, Oct. 22, 1984, Swem.
509 “I can't think of anything more selfish”: JC to Coates, Feb. 10 [1975].
509 “delinquent asshole”: JC to Donadio [c. March 1975], Swem.
510 “I'm faring rather poorly”: El Borracho [Ivan Gold], “Message in a Bottle,” Boston magazine, Jan. 1985, 82.
510 “in deep concern” about John: FLC Jr. to David Cheever, March 30, 1975.
510 “I must have been quite drunk and mad”: JJC, 301.
510–511 a degree of brain damage: Phelps admission summary, April 4, 1975, PRM.
511 “bunch of Christers”: LJC, 310.
511 memory was “apparently poor”: “Patient Progress Notes (4/9/75)” from Smithers, Swem.
511 “A bummer; not really bad, but not good”: JJC, 298–302.
511 “The indoctrination here is stern”: LJC, 312.
512 “They don't want me to work”: JC to FLC Jr., April 17, 1975, PJC.
513 “almost surreptitiously”: SD int. Ruth Maxwell, Sept. 17, 1984, Swem.
513 “I'm really allright but I can't say so”: GT, 243.
513 “Oh, but of course you're right”: author int. Carol Kitman, Aug. 16, 2004.
513 “But he was a brilliant poet”: JC, to anon., unmailed draft [summer 1975?], Houghton.
513 “Non posso, cara”: HBD, 194.
514 “Fifteen patients have fled”: JC to Spear, April 21 [1975], courtesy of Pamela Spear Goff.
514 “Alcoholism seems to be an infirmity”: JC to Clare Thaw, May 11 [1977].
514 “He says that if he were strong enough”: LJC, 313.
515 “She seems to operate”: progress notes, 5/5/75, Swem.
515 a postcard … “See?”: author int. Oakley Hall III, June 23, 2005.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE {1975}
516 “To go from continuous drunkenness”: JJC, 303.
516 “a man of 34 who has been”: CJC, 113.
516 “This is the one I want!”: author int. John Dirks, May 9, 2004.
517 Updike, whose “immense kindness”: JC to JU, June 2 [1975], Houghton.
517 “giant martinis in jelly glasses”: Betsy Brown, “The Friday Club, A Cheever Salon,” New York Times, June 27, 1982, sec. 11, pp. 1, 8.
517 “I used to be an alcoholic”: SD int. Marion Ascoli, July 5, 1984, Swem.
517 “[If John] can do [AA]”: FLC Jr. to David Cheever, May 15, 1975.
517 “lack[ing] the coherence of a redneck cult”: JC to Brinnin, Dec. 9 [1975?], Delaware.
518 “My name is Jawn”: GT, 244.
518 his “wife of a hundred years”: author int. Clare Thaw, May 6, 2004.
518 pathetic old man in an “ill-fitting suit”: JJC, 305.
518 “ ‘Yesterday was a memory, tomorrow is a dream’ “: ibid., 369.
519 “We really need you, Truman”: e-mail from Grace Schulman to author, June 29, 2004.
519 “You're an alcoholic like me”: SD int. Dudley Schoales, Jr., July 17, 1984, Swem.
520 “I've changed violently”: JJC, 303.
520 “that the house wasn't cleaned by gremlins”: NFB, 124.
520 “I lean for a kiss.
There is none”: JJC, 309.
521 “highly polished brown loafer”: BP, 61.
521 “missed their date at the municipal dump”: JJC, 314.
521 “Fred got honors at Andover”: GT, 244.
521 “put her little feet on the path”: JC to Schwartz, Oct. 7 [1975], Swem.
522 “Poldark! Poldark!”: Steven Hager, “Cheever on Writing for TV,” Horizon, Dec. 1981, 56.
522 “face of a ferret”: JC to Gurganus, May 26 [1976].
522 “the small museum guard in a worn uniform”: JJC, 330.
523 “without precaution or moderation”: Gurganus to JC [c. March 1975], Swem.
523 “A[llan] seems … to magnify the incongruities”: JJC, 306.
CHAPTER FORTY {1975–1976}
524 “[his] sordid deliquesence [sic]”: JC to anon., unmailed draft [summer 1975?], Houghton.
525 “we were the kind of people”: JC, “The Folding-Chair Set,” New Yorker, Oct. 13, 1975, 38.
525 “finger-exercise” to commemorate: JC to Coates, Oct. 31 [1975].
525 “Do you know who I am?”: author int. Charles McGrath, Aug. 5, 2004.
526 “I am pleased that my work”: JC to Siggelkow, Feb. 7 [1976].
526 “We are very grateful to John”: WM to Donadio, n.d., NYPL-MSS.
526 “They were all very pleased with it”: CJC, 118.
526 “brain[ing] Tom Glazer”: JC to Coates, Oct. 31 [1975].
526 “Up the river to Yaddo”: JJC, 311–12.
527 “John! What a coincidence!“: author int. Gurganus, April 30, 2004.
527 “she decided that the people she loved”: JC, “The Hostess of Yaddo,” New York Times Book Review, May 8, 1977, 3, 35.
527 “positively no smoking”: author int. Melissa Meyer, Aug. 8, 2004.
527 Gurganus … rolled his eyes: author int. Philip Schultz, July 27, 2004.
528 “strike some sort of peace”: JC to Brinnin, Sept. 4 [1975], Delaware.
528 “I must repair my farewell scenes”: JC to Schwartz, Nov. 17 [1975], Swem.
528 “That place is asshole”: JC to Schwartz, Dec. 8 [1975], Swem.
528 “ ‘Hot shit,’ [the cabbie] said”: JC to Valhouli, Dec. 6 [1975], Swem.
528 “When you're hot you can write anything”: Barbato int. JC, Oct. 27, 1978, Swem.
528 “How like sandpipers were the children”: JC, “The President of the Argentine,” Atlantic Monthly, April 1976, 44.