Shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography 2010.
A biography of the highly acclaimed American author, John Cheever, who was winner of the Pulitzer prize among others. An informed, amusing and detailed biography of a fascinating and talented writer.
John Cheever was one of the foremost chroniclers of post-war America, a peerless writer who on his death in 1982 left not only some of the best short stories of the twentieth century and a number of highly acclaimed novels, but also a private journal that runs to an astonishing four million words. Cheever's was a soul in conflictm who hid his troubles - alcoholism, secret bisexuality - behind the screen of genial life in suburbia, but as John Updike came to remark: 'Only he saw in its cocktail parties and swimming pools the shimmer of dissolving dreams ...' Blake Bailey, writing with unprecedented access to the journal and other sources, has brought characteristic eloquence and sensitivity to his interpretation of Cheever's life and work. This is a luminous biography that reveals - behind the disguises with which he faced the world - a troubled but strangely lovable man, and a writer of timeless fiction.
'Stunningly detailed ...Even more eloquent and resourceful than
Bailey's celebrated biography of Richard Yates, A Tragic Honesty ...Bailey's interweaving of Cheever's fiction with his experience is a
tour de force' - New York Times Book Review
Author
About Blake Bailey
Blake Bailey is the author of the highly acclaimed biography of Richard Yates, A Tragic Honesty, which was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award. He is the editor of John Cheever: Collected Stories and Other Writings.
