Try our Advanced SearchShort stories by John Cheever
John William Cheever (May 27, 1912 – June 18, 1982) was an American novelist and short story writer. He is sometimes called "the Chekhov of the suburbs".[1][2] His fiction is mostly set in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the Westchester suburbs, old New England villages based on various South Shore towns around Quincy, Massachusetts, where he was born, and Italy, especially Rome. His short stories included "The Enormous Radio", "Goodbye, My Brother", "The Five-Forty-Eight", "The Country Husband", and "The Swimmer", and he also wrote five novels: The Wapshot Chronicle (National Book Award, 1958),[3]The Wapshot Scandal (William Dean Howells Medal, 1965), Bullet Park (1969), Falconer (1977) and a novella Oh What a Paradise It Seems (1982). His main themes include the duality of human nature: sometimes dramatized as the disparity between a character's decorous social persona and inner corruption, and sometimes as a conflict between two characters (often brothers) who embody the salient aspects of both – light and dark, flesh and spirit. Many of his works also express a nostalgia for a vanishing way of life (as evoked by the mythical St. Botolphs in the Wapshot novels), characterized by abiding cultural traditions and a profound sense of community, as opposed to the alienating nomadism of modern suburbia.
Listing 15 stories.
A middle-aged writer finds a suicide note and a copperhead in his garden, beginning a series of linked events that cause him to question reality and prompt his doctor to send him to Florida for rest and rehabilitation.
A man imprisoned for murdering his brother drifts between his visiting wife, his memories of life outside, and his friends in prison as he struggles to find meaning in his captivity -- in everyone's captivity.
A disenchanted couple moves from the country to the city. As they engage with an inside joke that once kept them closely together, it incites an exasperated conversation about long-accumulated problems.
An American expat who lives in Rome struggles to understand his adopted country, especially the Italian language. When he finally finds the right teacher, he is overjoyed, but her unique personal life quickly pervades their lessons and confounds their rapport.
Two brothers have been inseparable since their parent's divorce. When a girl starts to flirt with one of the boys, he ignores her to hang out with his brother, who realizes their bromance is too distracting.
A bored, neglected husband has a near-death experience that makes him question whether he is truly happy with his life.
Discontent with her life, a wealthy woman becomes involved with a young grocery boy, hoping it will spice things up.
When a couple buys a new radio, the wife becomes obsessed with its ability to catch conversations of their neighbors private lives.
A Manhattan businessman is stalked by his former secretary and one-night stand on a train ride home.
In upstate New York, a journalist reflects on his complex relationships with a local politician and businessman, his children, and the wife who murdered him.