Cheever_ A Life - Blake Bailey [437]
672 “a well-known writer who was gay”: author int. Larry David, April 5, 2004.
672 “the most expensive, protracted and vicious”: quoted in Anita Miller, Uncollecting Cheever: The Family of John Cheever vs. Academy Chicago Publishers (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), ix.
673 “[M]y father loved his children”: HBD, 218.
674 “a minor character in someone else's book”: TT, 169.
675 “If there's someone who never loved himself “: SD int. MZ, June 27, 1984, Swem.
676 “endure and be read by future generations”: “Inquirer Sponsors Poll on Immortal American Authors,” Publishers Weekly, March 26, 1979.
676 “Groping about for ways to understand”: Robert A. Morace, “Long-Distance Thoughts on ‘Cheever Studies,’ “ paper read at Northeast MLA meeting, March 1986, Swem.
677 “Superintendent Wishnie moved”: JC to Dirkses, March 13, 1982.
677 “There are no Cheever ghosts”: Lane Lambert, “Famous and Forgotten: Cheever's Literary Legacy Unheralded in Quincy,” Patriot Ledger, June 17, 2000, 1–3.
677 “I'm not inclined to think of myself “: John J. Mullins, “Cheever Writes on Matters of Urgency,” Times-Picayune, Feb. 22, 1979, sec. 4, p. 6.
677 “He was often labelled a writer about suburbia”: OJ, 109.
677 his “favorite” Western writer: James Kullander, “Why China's Culture Minister Got Sacked,” Christian Science Monitor, Sept. 15, 1989, 19.
678 “that Cheever writes beautifully”: Foreword, WS (New York: Perennial Classics Edition, 2003), ix.
678 “short, pithy, and pointed quote”: New York Daily News, June 23, 1982, 8.
PERMISSIONS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:
Susan Cheever: Excerpts from Home Before Dark by Susan Cheever. Reprinted by permission of Susan Cheever.
HarperCollins Publishers: Excerpts from The Wapshot Chronicle by John Cheever, copyright © 1954, 1956, 1957 by John Cheever; and excerpts from The Wapshot Scandalby John Cheever, copyright © 1959, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964 by John Cheever. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company: Excerpt from “Meeting Cheever” from New and Selected Poems by Michael Ryan, copyright © 2004 by Michael Ryan. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
Newsweek: Excerpt from “A Duet of Cheevers” by Susan Cheever Cowley (Newsweek, March 14, 1977), copyright © 1977 by Newsweek, Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of PARS International, on behalf of Newsweek and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copyright, redistribution, or retransmission of the material without express written permission is prohibited.
Simon & Schuster: Excerpts from The Letters of John Cheever, edited by Benjamin Cheever, copyright © 1988 by Benjamin Cheever. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
The Wylie Agency, Inc.: Excerpt from “John Cheever: The Art of Fiction LXII” by Annette Grant (The Paris Review, Fall 1976), copyright © 1976 by The Paris Review. Reprinted by permission of The Wylie Agency, Inc.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BLAKE BAILEY edited a two-volume edition of Cheever's work, published in 2009 by The Library of America. His last book, A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He received a Guggenheim fellowship in 2005, and his articles and reviews have appeared in Slate, the New York Times, the New York Observer, and elsewhere. He lives in Virginia with his wife and daughter.
This Is a Borzoi Book
Published by Alfred A. Knopf
Copyright © 2009 by Blake Bailey
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by
Random House of Canada, Limited, Toronto.
www.aaknopf.com
Portions of this work originally appeared in the following: The Believer,
The Gettysburg Review, Harvard Review, Virginia Quarterly Review,
and Vice.
Grateful acknowledgment is made