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By Root 3909 0

his friends at The New Republic: “Nice people to drink beer and shuck corn with,” as Cheever put it. At once grateful and slightly resentful of Cowley's patronage, Cheever would always regard the man with a kind of risible filial impiety. At the time he characterized him as “dull, slow, with an eye … for the second rate,” though he allowed that Cowley was likable enough and “useful” up to a point. There was, however, in his attitude toward Cowley (and most of the world) a considerable dissonance between heart and head. Frances Lindley remembered a dinner with the two men shortly after Cowley's mother died in 1935: “Malcolm produced a couple of childhood silver spoons, and John was tender toward him,” she said, invoking the episode as an instance of Cheever's conspicuous “sweetness” when young. But always, too, a certain distance. As Cheever noted that previous autumn in New York, his floating among such diverse worlds was, above all, a good education: “I know more about the history of literature and the conduct of men and women than I could have learned at Harvard.”

An actual Harvard diploma, though (or even one from Thayer), would have come in handy while trying to get a decent job at a magazine or newspaper. Under the circumstances, the best Cheever could do was occasional work writing plot synopses for M-G-M at the rate of five dollars a book. It was a hard-earned paycheck. The novels were divvied out by a Mrs. Lewton, a somewhat elusive figure who did not allow her employees to choose their own reading. “I've done one lousey detective story and am at work on a romance by a woman named or called Brada Field,” Cheever reported that first week; a week later he'd gotten started on a thriller by Sarah Gertrude Millin, about whom his only comment was “Phrrft.” On Wednesdays, when he wasn't waiting around for Mrs. Lewton, he waited around the offices of The New Republic with a crowd of other down-and-out literati, including the legendary bohemian Joe Gould (dressed in newspapers), since Cowley assigned book reviews on that day. Despite his good intentions, though, Cowley had far more reviewers than he could possibly use, and only gave books to Cheever (a reluctant critic, no matter how hungry) when there was a good thematic fit.*

The hot weather and Sarah Gertrude Millin were too much for Cheever, and after less than three weeks on Hudson Street he begged Mrs. Ames to take him back. She relented, letting him know that the mansion would close in mid-October and that he might be asked to make a “small contribution” if he elected to stay. Cheever was ecstatic, and after collecting his latest paycheck from Mrs. Lewton, he boarded a bus for Saratoga—arriving, rather fatefully, during the last weekend of the racing season. That Saturday, at a time when Mrs. Ames expected him to be sequestered with his work, Cheever and a painter named Martin Craig jumped a fence at the back of the estate and blew their money on the horses. Mrs. Ames let the incident pass. When, however, a few weeks later, Cheever and Craig failed to appear at dinner because of an unauthorized engagement in town, a blue note appeared in Cheever's lunch basket: “It now seems best to set your departure for Monday, October 8th,” Mrs. Ames sweetly informed him. “Perhaps after a month or so it will be possible to make some arrangements for you to come back either by contributing something for your board or perhaps doing some outdoor labor of which there is always plenty to do here at Yaddo.”

Cheever was dismayed—”the lowest of the low”—though he might have been a bit relieved, at least, that his exile wasn't permanent. Also, Mrs. Ames had been decent enough to give him sufficient notice (two weeks) to make other arrangements; since he was dead broke, of course, he had to ask Fred and Iris (now married) to come pick him up in the roadster and let him regroup at their apartment in Weymouth for a few weeks before returning to New York. As for Mrs. Ames's invitation to return for the winter as a part-time laborer, he declined: “There is no possibility [at Yaddo] for exploration,