Word: cheevers
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...Order, Uhnak (3) 4-Evening in Byzantium, Shaw (6) 5-The Matlock Paper, Ludlum (4) 6-Facing the Lions, Wicker 7 -The Odessa File,' Forsyth (8) 8 -The Summer Before the Dark, Lessing (9) 9-Sleeping Beauty, Macdonald (5) 10-The World of Apples, Cheever (10); NONFICTION 1-Laughing All the Way, Howar (3) 2 -The Joy of Sex, Comfort (2) 3-Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution, Atkins (1) 4-Sybil, Schreiber(5) 5-Serpico, Maas (4) 6-I'm O.K., You're O.K., Horn's (6) 7-My Young Years, Rubinstein (8) 8-Weight Watchers...
...World of Apples, Cheever...
...with all of Cheever's good guys. Threatened by pressures that only vaguely understand, cut off by their work and upbringing from what their wives must feel, they fall back on a meshing of school dictums and artifacts, and, if possible, love. These fail to make life coherent, but they do help make it bearable. Cheever is a master ironist, and always filters wit through his pain...
...BEST STORY of the lot, and the one which encompasses most of what Cheever has to say, is a straightforward narrative, "Artemis, The Honest Well-Digger." Artemis is the inarticulate American hero. He is naive, well-meaning and strong. He likes sex, and loves his work. Wells bring him close to water, which he sees as the stuff of life. "Water was man. Water was love. Water was water." As Artemis nears 30, complications ensue. He wants to marry the girl on oleomargarine packages, but he can't find her in real life. While digging wells for wasteful rich people...
...couldn't really express what he was going through; he had always lived according to the dictates of better rock music, and I didn't know how deep his malaise ran. When last I was in Cherry Hill, rumors had it that he had freaked out in NYC. Cheever's story probably won't help Jim any, if he ever reads it. But it did jog my own memory of him and that itself is important...