Word: cheever
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Those who have denied Cheever this stature argue that his characters are too narrow and too much of a piece, that their sheltered lives yield up only hothouse malaise or gilded exaltations. Such complaints put Cheever in excellent company; the work of such different writers as Jane Austen and Henry James has suffered and easily endured similar cavils...
...Cheever deserves a defense. Unquestionably, his wealthy New Yorkers and suburbanites have much in common. The author describes them in one story as "the company of those people who were most free to develop their gifts." These fortunate few are much more significant than critics seeking raw social realism will admit. Well outside the mainstream, the Cheever people nonetheless reflect it admirably. What they do with themselves is what millions upon millions would do, given enough money and time. And their creator is less interested in his characters as rounded individuals than in the awful, comic and occasionally joyous ways...
...best Cheever stories act like fulcrums: they translate considerable social weight into emotional power. The art is one of indirection, of inescapable conclusions drawn from shadowy evidence. Describing people watching in The Summer Farmer, Cheever captures his own method: "It is true of even the best of us that if an observer can catch us boarding a train at a way station; if he will mark our faces, stripped by anxiety of their self-possession; if he will appraise our luggage, our clothing, and look out of the window to see who has driven us to the station...
...railroad imagery is appropriate, not only because so many of Cheever's characters are commuters. A good many others are suddenly discomfited by journeys of the body or spirit that they had not meant to take. In The Seaside Houses, a husband takes his family to the beach for the summer and begins sensing sour emanations from his rented house; before he realizes why, his marriage of twelve years is over. In The Housebreaker of Shady Hill, a man with money troubles is appalled to find himself burgling his wealthy neighbors and friends...
...Cheever character endures more shocks than the hero of The Country Husband, perhaps the best story he has ever written. Things begin going wrong for Francis Weed when he survives a plane crash and goes home to find that neither his wife nor his children seem interested. In short order, Francis recognizes the maid at a neighbor's party as the same woman he had seen, years before, being shaved and stripped at a Normandy crossroads for collaborating with the Nazis. Rattled, Francis falls in love with the teen-age babysitter. Seeking psychiatric help, he is detained by police...