summer of cheever.

i decided after being a huge fan of john cheever's work, to read the pseudo-authorized bio by blake bailey. i've read cheever's collected short stories and his journals, provided by his family. did i need to read more? yes. i've always had a prurient interest in his life. it was gratifying and horrifying to read 800 pages about a truly tortured, vain, selfish, brilliant and, at times, cruel man. it left me thoroughly depressed. in a good way.
this is a writer that i have held in esteem since i was 13 and read my father's copy of collected stories. that big red book is one of the only books that i have taken with me in all my moves. it was heartbreaking to find that i had lost it somewhere between moves. but luckily amazon came through with a much nicer copy than my old one.
i also picked up his collected novels at the library a few weeks ago, and just finished falconer. although it contained some beautiful and hilarious passages, it felt "lite". it was written shortly after he taught at sing-sing, and i believe many of the characters and situations are loosely based on his experience there. the novel read like a self therapy session in advanced latent homosexuality. perhaps, after sobering up and taking stock in his life he felt it was time to write this.
after my disappointment, i picked up the big red book again, hoping that i was not wrong about this guy. could it have been youthful folly? did i like him just cause my dad liked him?
after re-reading the first sentence of The Enormous Radio, i knew why i loved him; this was a man who knew vitriol, knew the corrosive, knew the deep sadness and the hilarity of the american dream. and don't get me started on The Five Forty Eight, The Sutton Place Story or The Swimmer. my advice: get the big red book.