Word: wapshot
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Susan Cheever her father's life according to his success as a writer. In the early 1960s, when Cheever's first novel. The Wapshot Scandal, began winning awards, and when his reputation as a New Yorker short story staff writer seemed assured, he felt himself on top of the world. But success and celebrity took big toll on Cheever. His daughter claims he became "quite pompous about himself," and his drinking, which had always been heavy according to the socially acceptable fashion of New York literati, became increasingly so. And as Cheever became aware of his homosexuality, his embarrassment over...
Publication of The Wapshot Chronicle (1957), his first novel, brought Cheever the first of his many awards and a period of relative financial security. Susan remembers these heady times, which stretched through the 1960s: "His marriage was still exciting, his children were thriving, and we all made a lot of 'Will success spoil John Cheever?' jokes. Later, success and celebrity took a big toll on my father and he became quite pompous about himself...
...work that accumulated over the years was ultimately collected as The Stories of John Cheever (1978), which became a bestseller and revived singlehanded publishers' and readers' interest in the American short story. Along the way, Cheever had also won awards and recognition for his novels, including The Wapshot Chronicle (1957), Bullet Park (1969) and Falconer (1977). He married, fathered two sons and a daughter, survived a serious heart attack in 1972 and recovered from alcoholism. His last novel, Oh What a Paradise It Seems, was published in March...
...contemporary morality of the suburban middle-class, yet he never loses a sense of warmth and compassion toward his subjects. He sharpened his ear for dialogue in years of short-story writing for The New Yorker, among other publications, and has since graduated to novels, including The Wapshot Chronical and last year's impressive best-seller, Falconer...
...acres and a mule. In the second half of the 20th it is a suburban quarter-acre and a maid. For millions, both dreams have meant a significant step up. But for the major characters in John Cheever's fiction, suburbia is a definite step down. His Wapshot family, for example, traced its lineage to colonial New England and to the patriarchal Leander Wapshot who advised his clan to "bathe in cold water every morning. Relish the love of a gentle woman. Trust in the Lord...