Cheever_ A Life - Blake Bailey [28]
* Cheever wrote of this episode repeatedly in letters, journals, and finally in Falconer, where he called the fateful beach “Nagasakit.” In The Wapshot Chronicle, Leander ferries his customers aboard the Topaze to the amusement park at “Nangasakit” Beach, which appears to be the same fictional locale with an “n” added. Both are almost certainly based on Paragon Park at Nantasket Beach in Hull, about ten miles from Wollas-ton, which featured a large roller coaster such as the one Frederick rode so boozily Cheever was known to frequent the beach in his childhood.
*”Well, she did damage my father,” said Cheever with an edge of annoyance during an otherwise benign TV appearance in 1981, “and my father's well-being was very much my concern.”
* Peter Benelli, a later headmaster at Thayer, agreed with Cheever's assessment of the school circa 1930: “I was approached by angry graduates who were never taught to write,” he said. “Mostly they were just prepped for achievement tests.” Cheever's claim that he was bound for Harvard is more dubious. At the time, fewer than 10 percent of Thayer graduates went to Harvard. With Cheever's miserable academic record at a school of rather modest reputation, it's hard to believe anyone (much less Cheever) seriously considered him Harvard material.
* Miss Gemmel survived the attack and continued teaching at Thayer for many years. Hugh Hennedy (class of ‘47) was also given tea and cookies at Sunset Lake, and will attest that the woman was still teaching The Forsyte Saga in its entirety almost twenty years after Cheever's departure. “His portrait of her dazzles me every time I look at it,” said Hennedy.
† As we shall see, he returned to the South Shore only twice after his mother's death in 1956: for his brother Fred's funeral and for his own.
CHAPTER FOUR
{1930-1934}
JOHN AND HIS BROTHER had not been close when Fred left for Dartmouth in 1924, but when he returned two years later (because of the family's financial straits) the age difference no longer mattered as much. Also, Fred felt an obligation toward his gifted sibling, who was all but entirely alone in the world except for their embattled parents. Fred had settled briefly in Framingham, a few miles west of Boston, but as often as possible he'd drive to Quincy in his Model A roadster and, in effect, rescue his little brother. “[W]hen the situation was most painful and critical,” Cheever remembered, “my brother entered my life and played out for me the role of mother, father, brother and friend.”
The two brothers—Fritz and Joey—were almost inseparable for the next five years or so. They took a sculpting class together and read the same books; they spent long days at the beach or simply driving and talking about things. At one point Fred was between jobs and moved back to the house on Winthrop Avenue, where he witnessed firsthand what a shambles his family had become. There was, of course, the constant bickering (or fraught silences) between his parents, but most appalling was the deterioration of his father, whose behavior was markedly odd with or without alcohol. One or both of the boys often stayed out late at night, and one of Frederick's rituals involved locking them out of the house; one night young Fred had to force a window to get back in, and his father fired