JOHN CHEEVER (1912-1982)
Ossining's own "Chekhov of the Suburbs"
The main reading room in the new library will be named for John Cheever, the great American novelist and short story writer who lived in Ossining from 1951 until his death in 1982.
The decision by the library's Board of Trustees honors Cheever's contributions to literature and his strong connections to Ossining, his adopted hometown. When Cheever was on the cover of Time in 1964, the headline was: "The Ovid of Ossining." John Leonard, former editor of The New York Times Book Review, has praised Cheever as "the Chekhov of the suburbs."
Cheever won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Medal for Literature. His short stories and novels, including the Wapshot Chronicle, The Wapshot Scandal, Bullet Park, and Falconer (inspired by writing classes he taught at Sing Sing) remain mainstays of 20th century fiction.
Library Director Ed Falcone said that "with its two-story windows, fireplace, and overstuffed furniture, the John Cheever Reading Room will be one of the most comfortable and inviting spaces in the new Ossining Public Library. Located on the library's main floor, and overlooking Croton Avenue, the Cheever Room will display the library's extensive magazine and newspaper collections."
Jane Clark, a longtime library staffer, remembers Cheever as a friend of the Ossining Public Library and how in 1982 Cheever wrote to Dorothy Lander, who was then the library director, noting that "with the destruction of the Hollow (a reference to the widening of Route 9), the Public Library, crowned on its hill, will seem to be the brains of the village and I suspect it has been all along."
In his 1988 biography, Scott Donaldson wrote that it was in Ossining "that Cheever showed himself most plain. He came to love the town toward the end, for both its physical beauty and its lack of pretentiousness."
Cheever was a regular at the Highland Diner "where he'd arrive with a book or newspaper and look around for someone to talk to…… … He knew and was liked by so many people in the town that his family used to call him the Mayor of Ossining. He never ran for office, of course, but there was an abortive movement in the wake of the Pulitzer to name a street after him. Cheever was pleased and self-deprecatory about this at the same time. He and Mary and the children sat around the dinner table thinking of what else might be named after him. 'Let's see,' he proposed, 'how about the John Cheever Memorial Dump?'"
When Cheever died, Donaldson reports, flags in Ossining flew at half-mast for ten days. His son, Ben, and daughter-in-law Janet, lowered the flag at the Highland Diner themselves. The Ossining Citizen Register proudly wrote that "Cheever was as closely associated with Ossining as Emerson with Concord or Tolstoy with Yasnaya Ployana."
Twenty-four years later, no garbage dump has been named after Cheever. But his photo is proudly displayed at the Highland Diner, noting that a great American writer used to eat here. And soon, a lovely reading room will be named in his honor.
A dedication ceremony for the room with members of the Cheever family will be held after the new library opens. His widow, Mary Cheever, who lives in Ossining, is the author of The Changing Landscape: A History of Briarcliff-Manor -- Scarborough. Two of their three children, Susan Cheever and Benjamin Cheever, are novelists and essayists. Benjamin also is the editor of The Letters of John Cheever and wrote the introduction to The Journals of John Cheever. (Cheever's journals at Harvard's Houghton Library run to five million words).
Cheever's writing and personal life remain of interest to readers, 24 years after his death. Blake Bailey, who's writing a biography of Cheever, scheduled to be published late next year, has said he intends to write Cheever's life as "a redemptive fable."
For further reading about John Cheever:
- Treetops: A Family Memoir by Susan Cheever (1999);
- John Cheever: A Study of the Short Fiction by J.E. O'Hara (1989);
- John Cheever: A Biography by Scott Donaldson (1988);
- Home Before Dark: A Biographical Memoir of John Cheever by His Daughter by Susan Cheever (1984).
For listening:
- The John Cheever Audio Collection by John Cheever, read by Cheever, Meryl Streep, Edward Herrmann, Peter Gallagher and George Plimpton (Caedmon/HarperAudio, 6 1/2 hours, unabridged).
USA Today reviewer Deirdre Donahue wrote that this "12-story collection left me gasping with admiration and shock, reminding me what a literary master John Cheever was.
"Benjamin Cheever, his son, reads the preface that his father wrote to his collected stories, and the author himself reads the last two stories in the collection. Both do an excellent job, but Herrmann, Plimpton and Gallagher provide standout performances.
"Streep opens the collection with 'The Enormous Radio,' marvelously modulating her voice to suit the story's changing pace and spirit. (Yes, she does do an English nursemaid accent to perfection.)
"And to all those baby boomer authors who fancy that they discovered sex, booze, infidelity and the crushing despair of adult life, Cheever was there first and has never been topped. This one's a keeper -- for adults and older teens only, however."
The writings of John Cheever:
- THE WAY SOME PEOPLE LIVE: A BOOK OF SHORT STORIES, 1943
- THE ENORMOUS RADIO AND OTHER STORIES, 1953 -
- THE DAY THE PIG FELL INTO THE WELL, 1954
- STORIES, 1956
- THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLE, 1957 - (National Book Award)
- THE HOUSEBREAKER AT SHADY HILL AND OTHER STORIES, 1958
- SOME PEOPLE, PLACES AND THINGS THAT WILL NOT APPEAR IN MY NEXT NOVEL, 1961
- THE WAPSHOT SCANDAL, 1964 - (Howell's Medal for Fiction)
- THE BRIGADIER AND THE GOLF WIDOW, 1964 - includes the much anthologized story 'The Swimmer,' film 1968, dir. by Frank Perry and Sydney Pollack, written by Eleanor Perry, starring Burt Lancaste and Kim Hunter.
- HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE, 1965
- BULLET PARK, 1969
- THE WORLD OF APPLES, 1973
- FALCONER, 1977 -
- THE STORIES OF JOHN CHEEVER, 1978 - (Pulitzer Prize)
- THE LEAVES, THE LIONFISH AND THE BEAR, 1980
- OH, WHAT A PARADISE IT SEEMS, 1982
- THE LETTERS OF JOHN CHEEVER, 1988 (ed. by Benjamin Cheever)
- THE UNCOLLECTED STORIES OF JOHN CHEEVER, 1990
- THE JOURNALS OF JOHN CHEEVER, 1991
- THIRTEEN UNCOLLECTED STORIES OF JOHN CHEEVER, 1994
RADIO INTERVIEWS:
- To hear a 1992 CBS Radio interview with Benjamin Cheever about his own career and his father go to: http://wiredforbooks.org/benjamincheever/
- To hear Susan Cheever talking about her writing and her father in 1984, 1985 and 1991 interviews, go to: http://wiredforbooks.org/susancheever/
Also visit these websites:
- The John Cheever Web Site Critical essays by John Dyer on Cheever's work, including "Parody and the Suburban Aesthetic," and "Cheever's Puritanism and the Pastoral." Photographs of the author are included.
- The Boston Globe: an interview with Cheever biographer Blake Bailey
- The Washington Post Online Review of a theatrical adaptation of fourteen of Cheever's short stories.
- The Washington Post: Writers and Alcohol
An article from The Washington Post on alcoholism among writers, including Cheever. - John Cheever in Ossining at ossining.org