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By Root 3848 0

his proud Yankee parents never to seek fame or wealth in his literary career. His new agent, Lynn Nesbit, had negotiated a half-million-dollar advance on his next novel, and Cheever had invested much of the proceeds in short-term, tax-free municipal bonds—enchanted by the idea of making money without lifting a finger. “It would be a lie to say that I am disinterested in fame and wealth—I ardently desire both,” he'd admitted in his journal after finishing Falconer. But then, really, the giddy pleasure he took in the accoutrements was more endearing than not. He adored riding in limousines, a mink-coated wife at his side, and would unabashedly exclaim over the splendors of a fine hotel (“this is the first time I've ever had a view of the park, you know, the first time,” he told a Washington Post reporter while leaning “happily” out his window at the Plaza).

It was also characteristic of the sober, somewhat frail Cheever to be intimidated by certain high-powered public situations. When Susan had a book party at Elaine's for her first novel, she insisted that Elaine stand out on the street and make sure her father didn't just peek into the window and bolt; once he'd been drawn inside, he promptly glommed onto his old friend and Harper editor, Frances Lindley, with whom he could just sit and be Joey. “Some people seem to have a gift for public personality and I just don't have it,” said the man who—in some respects—never quite got used to himself as a famous person. Almost anyone who wanted to visit Cheever was welcome (however grudgingly), and in his last years, at least, he would give readings or signings for whosoever happened to ask. Also, the fact that he impersonated the gentry even more blatantly than O'Hara or Marquand was, on some level, rather playful: he was capable of laughing about the horses he rented for PR purposes, the conspicuous brace of faithful retrievers, the indefatigable scything and firewood-splitting and so forth, while at the same time it was nothing less than the consummation of his fondest dream. Naturally he jumped at the chance to be featured in a Rolex advertisement—very pleased that his name was associated with top-drawer merchandise—after which he could scarcely resist taking off his six-thousand-dollar Oyster Perpetual Superlative Chronometer and asking a friend (“Feel this!”) to consider its luxurious heft. Even better was being recognized on the street by deferential strangers—not simply as some run-of-the-mill actor, say, but as the Pulitzer Prize-winning Dean of the American Short Story, who moreover happened to be the same friendly-looking regular guy who appeared in the jacket photos. “As his fame increased,” his daughter noticed, “he developed another smile for cameras and people he didn't especially want to talk to. This smile left out his eyes and involved exposing his lower teeth. He had a kind of tense heh, heh, heh laugh that went with it.”

For the most part he became a lot more pompous. In an earlier phase of his fame—circa the 1964 Time cover, for instance—Cheever had usually been willing to mock his own pretensions, whereas the later Cheever often seemed to forget that the whole Elegant Paragon of Literature thing was something of a pose. “There are people who consider me, now that I'm sober, to be much more of a bore than I ever was falling down,” he observed in 1981, and among those who considered him thus were, first and foremost, his family. “He really was boring and insufferable,” said Federico, who loved him dearly. “Because he's thinking, like, gosh, he's arrived, he's made it. The first thing you have to keep in mind is, he's a drunk who doesn't drink anymore. They try to enjoy their lives. What does that mean? When you're a musician, people can ask you to play, and when you're a movie star, people can ask for your autograph, but what does it mean to be a famous writer? Well, you get to say pompous things. You get to talk about aesthetics and things like that. That's the goodies you get.”

Cheever made the most of his goodies. In later years he deployed his minimal French