David Walliams
English actor, comedian and writer
John Cheever was an acclaimed American short story writer and novelist, known for his works set in the suburbs and New England. He won numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and is considered a master of the short story form.
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About the John Cheever
John William Cheeverwas an American short story writer and novelist. He is sometimes called “the Chekhov of the suburbs”. His fiction is mostly set in the Upper East Side of Manhattan; the Westchester suburbs; old New England villages based on various South Shore towns around Quincy, Massachusetts, where he was born; and Italy, especially Rome. His short stories included “The Enormous Radio”, “Goodbye, My Brother”, “The Five-Forty-Eight”, “The Country Husband”, and “The Swimmer”, and he also wrote five novels: The Wapshot Chronicleand a novella, Oh What a Paradise It Seemswho embody the salient aspects of both–light and dark, flesh and spirit. Many of his works also express a nostalgia for a vanishing way of life (as evoked by the mythical St. Botolphs in the Wapshot novels), characterized by abiding cultural traditions and a profound sense of community, as opposed to the alienating nomadism of modern suburbia.
A compilation of his short stories, The Stories of John Cheever, won the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and a National Book Critics Circle Award, and its first paperback edition won a 1981 National Book Award.
On April 27, 1982, six weeks before his death, Cheever was awarded the National Medal for Literature by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His work has been included in the Library of America.
Frequently Asked Questions
John Cheever was an American short story writer and novelist who was known for his works set in the suburbs and New England. He won several prestigious awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Medal for Literature.
Some of John Cheever’s most famous works include the short stories ,The Enormous Radio,, ,Goodbye, My Brother,, ,The Five-Forty-Eight,, ,The Country Husband,, and ,The Swimmer., He also wrote five novels, including The Wapshot Chronicle and Falconer.
John Cheever’s writing often explored the duality of human nature, dramatizing the contrast between a character’s public persona and inner corruption. His works also expressed a nostalgia for a vanishing way of life in the suburbs and small-town New England.
John Cheever was born on May 27, 1912, in Quincy, Massachusetts.
John Cheever won several prestigious awards, including the National Book Award, the William Dean Howells Medal, and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his short story collection The Stories of John Cheever. He also received the National Medal for Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
John Cheever’s fiction was mostly set in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the Westchester suburbs, old New England villages based on towns around Quincy, Massachusetts, where he was born, and Italy, especially Rome.
John Cheever died on June 18, 1982, at the age of 70.
20 Quotes by John Cheever
- 1.
The need to write comes from the need to make sense of one’s life and discover one’s usefulness.
John CheeverAmerican novelist and short story writer (1912-1982)
- 2.
I can’t write without a reader. It’s precisely like a kiss – you can’t do it alone.
John CheeverAmerican novelist and short story writer (1912-1982)
- 3.
What I am going to write is the last of what I have to say. I will say that literature is the only consciousness we possess and that its role as consciousness must inform us of our ability to comprehend the hideous danger of nuclear power.
John CheeverAmerican novelist and short story writer (1912-1982)
- 4.
Art is the triumph over chaos.
John CheeverAmerican novelist and short story writer (1912-1982)
- 5.
For me, a page of good prose is where one hears the rain and the noise of battle. It has the power to give grief or universality that lends it a youthful beauty.
John CheeverAmerican novelist and short story writer (1912-1982)
- 6.
It was a splendid summer morning and it seemed as if nothing could go wrong.
John CheeverAmerican novelist and short story writer (1912-1982)
- 7.
The task of an American writer is not to describe the misgivings of a woman taken in adultery as she looks out of a window at the rain but to describe four hundred people under the lights reaching for a foul ball. This is ceremony.
John CheeverAmerican novelist and short story writer (1912-1982)
- 8.
The deep joy we take in the company of people with whom we have just recently fallen in love is undisguisable.
John CheeverAmerican novelist and short story writer (1912-1982)
- 9.
Wisdom we know is the knowledge of good and evil, not the strength to choose between the two.
John CheeverAmerican novelist and short story writer (1912-1982)
- 10.
Wisdom is the knowledge of good and evil, not the strength to choose between the two.
John CheeverAmerican novelist and short story writer (1912-1982)
- 11.
Fear tastes like a rusty knife and do not let her into your house.
John CheeverAmerican novelist and short story writer (1912-1982)
- 12.
When I remember my family, I always remember their backs. They were always indignantly leaving places.
John CheeverAmerican novelist and short story writer (1912-1982)
- 13.
People look for morals in fiction because there has always been a confusion between fiction and philosophy.
John CheeverAmerican novelist and short story writer (1912-1982)
- 14.
Literature has been the salvation of the damned, literature has inspired and guided lovers, routed despair and can perhaps in this case save the world.
John CheeverAmerican novelist and short story writer (1912-1982)
- 15.
Homesickness is nothing. Fifty percent of the people in the world are homesick all the time.
John CheeverAmerican novelist and short story writer (1912-1982)
- 16.
Fiction is experimentation; when it ceases to be that, it ceases to be fiction.
John CheeverAmerican novelist and short story writer (1912-1982)
- 17.
Good writers are often excellent at a hundred other things, but writing promises a greater latitude for the ego.
John CheeverAmerican novelist and short story writer (1912-1982)
- 18.
I do not understand the capricious lewdness of the sleeping mind.
John CheeverAmerican novelist and short story writer (1912-1982)
- 19.
That’s the way I remember them, heading for an exit.
John CheeverAmerican novelist and short story writer (1912-1982)
- 20.
All literary men are Red Sox fans – to be a Yankee fan in a literate society is to endanger your life.
John CheeverAmerican novelist and short story writer (1912-1982)