Cheever

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  463 “I think I'd be perfectly capable of killing”: quoted in Frederick Exley, “That Place,” unpublished essay, Rochester.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.