Sunday Morning! Beginning John Cheever

Rufus F.

Rufus is a likeable curmudgeon. He has a PhD in History, sang for a decade in a punk band, and recently moved to NYC after nearly two decades in Canada. He wrote the book "The Paris Bureau" from Dio Press (2021).

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4 Responses

  1. Rufus F. says:

    Really? No one’s read Cheever?Report

    • I had not but will be. As usual with your excellent posts I ended up down a Google rabbit hole on the topic of Cheever, and there is A LOT of writing about him and especially his “suburbia” takes that in his writing come off more fatalistic than the man himself seemed to think and experienced but was a perfect medium for his writing. This one will keep me busy for a while so thank you for sharing.Report

  2. Aaron David says:

    I read a couple of short stories (and shelved hundreds of copies of various books) but as a west coast kid, he never struck me as talking about my life. Stegner is were we went for that experience. And it’s not that Cheever couldn’t put a sentence together, indeed it was quite good, but it didn’t have the feeling that actually spoke to us.

    Updike was the same way. It was good, just not our lives and possibilities he was talking about.

    I have been reading vintage British mysteries, as I had a difficult weekend to get through last week, and I needed something light. The British Museum has reprinted a lot of golden age thrillers and they are quite fun, in an innocent way. Half the time the Vicar did it!Report

  3. I read Falconer when it came out; can’t say I recall much about it, except that the same-sec relationship seemed daring at the time.

    Also a book (no idea which or by whom) in which a Jewish girl from Brooklyn is dating a well-off WASP boy from New England, and while she’s getting ready to visit his parents for the first time, her friend tell her “Watch out! They’re the people John Cheever writes about!”Report