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further on the subject (except notes) almost eight months later: “Since I know so much about addiction and incarceration why can't I write about it? All I seem able to do is to howl: Let me out, let me out. What did I ever do to deserve this? I am both a prisoner and an addict.” Though he could no longer make his material cohere into good art, it continued to marinate somewhere in his brain, and occasionally he'd come out with some non sequitur that hinted at his obsession: “I think I'd be perfectly capable of killing my brother;” “I have no moral objection to homosexuality, it's just that I've never quite got the hang of the plumbing …” Meanwhile he told interviewers he was working on a “massive” novel (“You'll be able to lift it to the sound of outboard motors”), the progress of which was so painfully, painfully slow that he was determined to stop writing for good once it was done.

With nothing but time on his hands, Cheever was tempted to accept an invitation from his friend Exley to give a reading that autumn at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop—though he was far more wary about traveling than he'd been even a year before. “I breakfast on scotch and Librium,” he warned his host, “am having an unsavory love affair [Lang?], and suffer so from Agraphobia [sic] that it takes me a pint of liquor to get on the train.” Perhaps the deciding factor was sheer curiosity. After seven years of lively, candid correspondence, he and Exley had met in the flesh only once, and then briefly, when the latter received the Rosenthal Award at the 1969 Academy of Arts and Letters ceremony—this a direct result of Cheever's efforts. As chairman of the Committee on Grants for Literature that year, Cheever had proposed A Fan's Notes for the Rosenthal (given to “that literary work … which though it may not be a commercial success, is a considerable literary achievement”) by way of killing two birds with one stone: (1) promoting the cause of a worthy novel written by a friend (of sorts), while (2) scuttling Donald Barthelme, whose collection Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts had hitherto been considered the favorite. “[A]fter his last story in The New Yorker I cannot take [Barthelme] seriously,” Cheever wrote his fellow committee members. “This leaves me with Exley.” The poet Phyllis McGinley fired back that to eliminate Barthelme “on the strength of one failed story” seemed “captious;” besides, she “didn't find Exley up to his reviews.” Lest he appear to rule by fiat, Cheever diplomatically circulated a ballot including the names Exley, Malcolm Braly, and Richard Brautigan (but not Barthelme).

Even Exley—whose name is virtually synonymous with alcoholism—was impressed by Cheever's drinking. As he recalled, “No sooner were we on the highway [from the Cedar Rapids airport] that John reached into his raincoat pocket, pulled out a beige plastic pint flask containing gin, invited us to have a belt, we declined, John took a healthy swig and returned the flask to his pocket.” Exley showed his guest to a room at the Iowa House, then inquired whether it would be all right if a nice young man came to interview him for the campus newspaper; Cheever was happy to oblige. “I like Exley,” he said, when asked what writers he admired. Any others? “I like Exley.” Nobody else? “I like Exley.” So it went. Since Cheever had arrived a few days early, he and Exley filled the interval with a pleasant routine. Each morning they'd meet at the downstairs cafeteria for “shaky cups of coffee,” then embark on an all-day round of campus saloons. “Hi Fred! … Hi Ex!” shop clerks yelled from their doors as the two writers shambled along. When Cheever expressed amazement at his friend's celebrity after only ten weeks in town, Exley “beamed modestly” rather than explain that the clerks were hoping to be introduced to Cheever, whose arrival had been widely trumpeted in the local press.

Perhaps Exley should have mentioned as much, since Cheever's self-esteem was at a very low ebb, which meant a certain amount of compensatory haughtiness was almost inevitable. The writer Vance Bourjaily's