read one of the short pieces in this anthology. They are also incredibly uplifting too. A brilliant bedside companion for any dog lover.

Although each of the pieces in this book was inspired by the loss of a much beloved dog, this is really a book about vibrant, fully-alive dogs: family pets, fellow hunters, soul mates, and best friends. And while none of the dogs remembered so fondly here still lives, Old Dogs affirms the remarkably special place in the heart we reserve for our dogs. My own dog is sturdy in her middle-age, but reading the eulogies and odes in this moving anthology has made me appreciate more all the quirky habits I take for granted, like how she can't resist running off with one of my Reeboks when I'm shoeing up for our evening walk--the little prance she performs when I tell her, "Bring the shoe back!" Not a sad read but a celebratory one, required for every dog owner!

This is a remarkable anthology of stories and poems by outstanding authors of the past, as well as more recent times. Although these moving remembrances are only of beloved dogs, the lovers of any species of pet will find identical sentiments for their own losses. Whatever kind of companion animal you had, you will find your own bereavement and healing tears reflected here, as well.

Care was taken to avoid over-sentimentality, in this assortment of loving reflections of dogs, celebrated here. These accounts are full of love, and are sometimes even funny - and we are thrust into the realization that perhaps that is the most wonderful kind of living memorials we can have for a beloved pet. Too often, we lose this perspective, while trying to keep from drowning in our own bereavement and sorrows.

Rather than being a collection of sad literary memorials Old Dogs Remembered is a joyful celebration of life with pets. This inspires healthy new points of view and adjustments to moving on into our new lives, without them.

Here we are treated to many different outlooks on how they permanently enriched the lives of their owners. Reading these heartwarming pages will broaden the understanding of each reader, concerning his/her own personal bereavement. Here, we are offered the collective wisdom of others, who reminisce on their honored pets. There is much to be shared and learned here, as well as enjoyed.

With so many different authors, one must appreciate that references and styles have changed drastically, through the ages. As an example of this, some might find the essay by the dramatist John Galsworthy to be interesting, but a bit troublesome to read. And, as with any anthology, there may be some accounts not everyone would appreciate. But all pet lovers will readily identify with the overall shared remembrances, here. This is a heartwarming collection, which can be enjoyed comfortably, in several installments.

There will be many an uplifting tear shed in its reading, and we suggest it for your reading pleasure.

What started out as a worthy effort by a small press to collect hard-to-find stories by one of the great American writers of this century results in bitter lawsuits, huge costs, a lesser book, and an unfortunate lesson in the realities of publishing today. Hooray for those intrepid souls like the Millers who toil in literary vineyards for the love of the art more than financial gain.

In 1987 an agent for Academy Chicago Publishers suggested it publish the Uncollected Stories of John Cheever. When his widow signed the agreement, it looked like a coup for this small publisher. But when the number of stories greatly exceeded what Mrs. Cheever expected, she and her children tried to call off the deal. A legal battle quickly began in Chicago and New York courts. Anita Miller does a superb job of recounting the behind the scenes legal wrangling and disastrous courtroom scenes, at the same time providing many insights into the publishing industry. A must read for fans of lawsuit accounts like Civil Action, and for those interested in publishing and publishing law.

This audio collection of short stories - by three American Masters, Raymond Carver, John Cheever, and John Updike - is perfect for that next long drive, morning commute, or anytime you need something really good to listen to. I highly recommend.

Except for the first two, all of the stories in this collection are excellent! I had a great time reading them. My favorite is the sad "Bayonne", and the riotously funny "The Opportunity". There are hints of Cheever's celebrated prose style, but all of these stories are marvelously constructed narratives. The book itself is okay. Except for the hideous yellow of the jacket and more than a few typesetting and editorial factual errors, it is a very handsomely bound book with good paper and large, readable type. However, it's hard to justify twenty dollars for a 200 page book that's physically the size of a paperback novel.

For long stretches, "Bullet Park" tells highly abstract stories, such as Hammer's quest for the calming yellow room. These sections are odd but riveting, achieving emotional truth in a flat dreamy landscape. At other times, the book tells stories of dated exaggeration, such as the French's teacher's hysterical reaction to Tony Nailes. These sections are angry and a little obvious. Regardless, I nearly read this book in a single afternoon, which demonstrates that "Bullet Park" has a weird narrative power. But apart from its language, which is flat and anti-emotive (WASP suburbs, I suppose), does it really hold together?

What's lurking just next door, around the corner, down the street? Those nice couples that you meet at the playground, at church and at parties, there just like you and me, right? Or can you sense the insanity bubbling just behind the facade of polite scotch and water cocktail parties and rotary club meetings?

That's the theme behind Bullet Park, and Cheever explores it deftly and accurately. Some of the characters here are content with their place in the world and their neatly manicured lawns. Some are desperate and psychotic, and some are deeply depressed. Their interaction is the crux of the novel.

I see alot of Cheever influence in David Lynch's work, although admittedly Cheever's stories are much more lucid. This is my first experience with Cheever, and I am off to the library to get all the Wapshot stuff. If they are half as entertaining as Bullet Park, well then, there goes my weekend :-)

The realm of much of Cheever's fiction is the affluent suburban sprawl of Thruway-threaded upstate New York, Westchester County and environs. Like the infamous Shady Hill of his short stories, Bullet Park is a whitebread outpost for white-collar professionals who commute daily to the city and drink heavily on weekends, and often weekdays. In a comfortable house on a comfortable street in this town lives Eliot Nailles, a chemist whose specialty is mouthwash and who plies his craft with the conviction that bad breath can lead to global destruction, a respectable family man devoted to his wife Nellie and his teenage son Tony, and an avid churchgoer, although more out of a sense of duty than piety.

Tony's privileged status as an only child and a middle class Baby Boomer has bred an adolescence painful both to himself and to his parents, and he still continues to teeter on the brink of knuckleheadedness. With the insight of a child psychologist and the wisdom of an embattled father, Cheever recounts Tony's various phases: his addiction to television, his threat against his French teacher, his strange sudden interest in poetry, the brash older woman he invites to his parents' house for lunch, and especially his mysterious depression which confines him to bed for weeks and requires the healing power of a "swami" whose idea of therapy is to repeat mantras.

One day a man named Paul Hammer and his wife Marietta move into Bullet Park and befriend the Nailleses. Through first person narration, Paul reveals his colorful past: The illegitimate child of a wealthy, sculpturally ideal father and an eccentric, bookish mother, he uses his Yale education to drift drunkenly through life, translate the work of an Italian poet, and search for the perfect home -- one with a room with yellow walls. His mother's hatred of American capitalism inspires him to murder a well-to-do suburbanite as some kind of statement against bourgeois complacency -- and the man he chooses happens to be Tony Nailles.

The climax is quite surprising and arrives at a moment of the highest suspense and tension, an unusual technique for Cheever, who tends to use dialogue, thoughts, and impressions rather than action to resolve his characters' conflicts. But Cheever's fiction is always full of surprises, even though his subject matter seldom changes; his talent lies in his ability to imagine fascinating stories lurking behind the bland facades of American suburbia and crystallize them with his reliably brilliant prose. "Bullet Park" is a satire and a comedy; it patiently observes suburban provinciality and materialism, and even raises a question about oyster etiquette, all while holding up a distorted mirror to an anticipated readership that lives in places very much like the one it describes.

John Cheever's stories are among the best of American short fiction. This volume contains most of the stories Cheever ever wrote, and the number of excellent ones is really amazing. The best stories are all set in New York City and its suburbs, whereas some stories set in Italy are much less convincing. The stories are highlighting many aspects of American life, especially working-class and middle-class life. As a German reader who has spent some years of his life in the US, I am really impressed how well the "typical Americans" come to life in this book. Although the stories have mostly quite pessimistic endings and may not seem quite encouraging, there is nevertheless an all-pervading sense of humour and soft irony in them. At least 60% of these stories are true great fun to read, but they won't leave you all content, but something remains in the mind that keeps working. Most of the stories require the reader to dream up by himself what has really happened, so you as a reader become part of the fun and creative act of writing. A MUST read for anyone with the slightest interest in the US and American literature.

You owe it your bookshelf to own this compendium of John Cheever stories. I borrowed mine from the library, and thought I'd read perhaps half in the alloted time. Renewed once, then let the fines pile up, as I kept reading "just one more story." One a night is perfect bedtime reading...but with nearly 5 dozen stories...well you get the picture.

These are dark, dark tales of life at its zenith...ultra confident, comfortable post-war America. Florid description, rich portraiture, and slick storylines, Cheever's stories contain more than a few eye-popping twists and surprise endings. All the hallmarks of championship short-stories.

Warning: Restock the cabinet with gin and imagine the vermouth before reading. Cheever serves his Martini with a capital M.

I recently made a lengthy automobile trip through a boring section of the country, and I spent much of the drive listening to these stories. Of the sixty-odd pieces in this collection, almost all of them first published in _The New Yorker_, I'd previously read maybe one-third, especially the more famous and heavily anthologized ones like "The Swimmer." But my favorites are those in which Cheever experimented with style and content, like "The Enormous Radio" and "The Country Husband" and "The Wrysons" and "Goodbye My Brother." Cheever invented the "New York story" in which the characters are ordinary people living generally ordinary lives, but by whom the reader becomes fascinated. And the last paragraph always seems to tie up the narrative in a neat surgical knot. Amazingly good stuff.

this collection of interviews is great for any fan of Cheever's work. it does get a bit repetitious, but there is so much about the man (and the author) in these interviews

Review of CONVERSATIONS WITH CHEEVER

For those admirers of Cheever who would have been elated at the chance to converse with him about his art this book is gratifying. Surely, in these twenty eight interviews, questions are asked to which an admirer yearns for an answer. Granted some questions are echoed throughout various interviews - how much of Cheever's fiction is autobiography, for instance - a tendency the book's compiler mentions, still a lot of information about the writer's life, opinions, and working habits is presented. (A similar book and a suitable companion piece to this one is CONVERSATIONS WITH UPDIKE, particularly since the two were friends. Amazon carries it.)

What follows is merely a smattering of information from this treasure trove. Cheever liked to select a different room in his house in which to write each story. Many of his short stories were drafted in three days. Usually, at the publication of one of his books, he fled to Europe to avoid interviews, a habit he discarded later in his career. He was fond of Labrador Retrievers and owned several of the breed. Anyone wishing to discover the intimate details about the renowned American's life would do well to own this source.

John Cheever kept a journal throughout much of his career. An admirer might hope to find in them (they have been published) a glimpse into the artist's methods as can be found in the notebooks of Henry James. He is apt to be disappointed. Much of Cheever's journals concentrates on his amorous peccadilloes. CONVERSATIONS WITH CHEEVER compensates for what the journals lack. A reader will find on every page a nugget either factual or insightful on this esteemed writer.

I am a big Cheever fan and it took me about a month at 10-12 pages a night to finish this book. Before buying this book, you should consider if you want to sit through 395 pages of drink, depression, marital strife, adultery, hypocrisy (Cheever's), and bisexuality; all set in a prose that is often beautiful and sometimes fragmentary. Please be forewarned, this is a journal, not a narrative, and Cheever is not at all concerned about clarity. PS: I was struck by how much he admired Hemingway. "I think of Hemingway, what we remember of his work is not so much the color of the sky as it is the absolute taste of loneliness."

Cheever says "I am fifty-four, but I still think myself too young...to suffer nightmares about throughways and bridges." Daily peril is ever close at hand in the self-abusive pain and duty of the observed life of a 20th century master of English prose. The only peril in reading this book is a broken heart. I would stand anywhere and say there are paragraphs in these journals that rival in beauty and perfection any other in English literature you may produce. Cheever can't help it; this kind of genius is inevitable, anyway. What does it matter that misery formed a life? The journal pages from Italy in the late 50's, especially, nurse a kind of transparent abiding of that old misery-- seeking, arranging and soldiering it, and writing, fortunately. However alcohol and inner troubles may have crippled aspects of Cheever's career, NOTHING but glory shadows his paragraphs of Light! Journals fixes itself more like an autobiographical duel in the form of a novel, so raw is Cheever's self-reaching & so moving his conclusions. Barely able to escape the intense life of the mind, Cheever's art almost threatens confessional literature by REFUSING TO CONFESS. He keeps his writer's mind, and makes the rest serve. As a result, the book is drenched with a beauty that doesn't dissolve. It's a worthwhile idea to get a copy JUST to read the paragraph written in 1981, after taking the dogs walking deep into the rainy woods, returning & listening to Bach's Concerto for Two Violins on headphones, while the wet and muddy dogs dry on the porch... It's an amazing book.

If you have not yet read The Wapshot Chronicle, I strongly urge you to read that novel before this one. The Wapshot Scandal is written as a sequel to The Wapshot Chronicle, and the situations and character development in the first book are important background for the second one.

Cousin Honora is back in The Wapshot Scandal, but in an unaccustomed role. She is one of the most original and interesting characters of 20th century literature, and my interest in her grew from reading this book. You will also follow Moses and Coverly through their developing careers, continuing marriages and family life. You will probably grow to be more interested in Coverly than before, because his character also receives much more development. The characters of Melissa, Moses's wife, and Betsy, Coverly's wife, are also nicely filled in from the simple sketches in The Wapshot Chronicle. A major new character is also introduced who serves as the exact opposite to Cousin Honora, Cameron, Coverly's brilliant scientist boss. The other significant new character is a young man whose life will remind you of the adolescent fantasies of teenage males.

What each character has in common is an incompleteness, a weakness so profound that it causes each to be mightily humbled. These weaknesses are exposed as the comfortable facade of social position that has surrounded and protected the Wapshots is gradually stripped away. Some of the characters find new meaning from the changed circumstances, while others find the harshness of life without protection to be unbearable. You will find it rewarding to think about what it means to have "grace under pressure" after reading this book.

Those who like lots of action in their books will find that this story gets off to a slow start, and only speeds up to a fast pace once or twice (depending on your idea of a fast pace). But this leisurely story constantly sets you up for unexpected events, that make you feel like Mr. Cheever has literally pulled the rug out from under your feet. Each time the unexpected blindsided me, I felt like I had been entertained by a master story teller of rare skill. Be especially patient in the beginning. The least amount of action occurs there.

My favorite quality in the book is its unabashed challenge to the following tenets of American life: Work hard; get ahead; have a nice family life in the suburbs; enjoy your friends and neighbors; do the right thing; and find solace in acquiring material possessions. Mr. Cheever clearly makes the case that more is needed to be a good person and to survive within one's own limitations. Some of the comic scenes where consumerism is lampooned are absolutely priceless! The satire aimed at the hypocrites who look down at those who can't cope is so sharp that their heads roll almost without showing blood.

This novel is a good one to savor . . . to read slowly . . . to discuss with others . . . and to reread.

What do you assume you should do with your life? Where do you have evidence that those assumptions may not be right? What goals would better serve you, those you love, those you care about, and everyone you come into contact with? Where is fatal complacency stealing away your opportunities to choose better directions?

If the events in this book happened to you, what would you do?

If you enjoyed the Wapshot chronicle, you will enjoy this,however he doesnt get into his stride until Chapter 6, or page 53. I have friends who claim they could never get into this book, and my advice to them is pick it up and start again at page 53 after which there is a great deal of the customary absurdity over which we lovers of Cheever drool. Thats all, enjoy!!

"Oh What a Paradise It Seems," by John Cheever, is a short novel (100 pages in the paperback edition) about an elderly man named Lemuel Sears. He sets out to save Beasley's Pond, in the town of Janice, from destruction by polluters. The story follows both his quest and his active love life, weaving his life together with those of a number of other people: an environmental crusader, an amorous doorman, and more.

The book has a pretty straightforward story, but throughout there is a slightly weird feeling; some parts of the book have a quality that reminds me of a David Lynch film. The book takes a brief and oddly unsatisfying detour into the subject of bisexuality. Overall the book is OK--it held my attention, but didn't do much more than that, although Cheever's prose style is often quite lovely. Give it a try.

This book is only a 100 pages and their is so much in a few words. "She was as women go relatively punctual and He had come to believe that punctuality in engagements was an infallible gauge of sexual spontaneity. He had observed that,without exception, women who were tardy for dinner engagements were unconsciously delayed in their erotic transports and that women who were early for lunch or dinner would sometimes climax in the taxi on the way home." IF you like that passage you will enjoy this book. Read more John Cheever.

Oh, What A Paradise It Seems is John Cheever's last novel, published just before his death in June 1982. It differs from his previous works, which mainly focused on suburban commuters, as it tells the story of an older man, but it still retains Cheever's wit and surrealness. The astonishing thing about this book is how deep the story goes, and yet it is only 100 pages long. It would take other authors 400 pages to write this story. It is, as the first sentence says, "A story to be read in bed in an old house on a rainy night."