It's difficult to argue that Mr. Cheever is not a writer of deserved renown. His work, "Falconer", is extremely well written and generally critically admired. The subject matter and the eyes belonging to Farragut through which we see this story held little appeal to me. I plan to try another of his books to see if this was the odd book out, or I am the odd reader out.

This is a not quite so typical prison story, which appears to be historically based predicated on the time periods and the names of prisons he uses. Why he chose to change them in this work of fiction I found puzzling, as they and there histories are well known even infamous. Farragut has been imprisoned for the crime of Fratricide. His version of the crime, and those related later in the work are so entirely different in detail and degree, the reader may reasonably ask what other events may fall into this category. Farragut's sexuality in and out of prison, his wife's and many of those we meet are discussed at length, and they compete on several levels none very pleasant. It may be that the haze or thread of a variety of addictions from sex to heroin blurs the message of this book. It may be the time he speaks of was so defined by what the Author emphasizes, that you either are absorbed in it, or feel that it is tired.

Mr. Cheever did not earn the repeated notice of his skills as a writer and the awards that followed without reason. So in the end it may have been my lack of interest in the self absorbed characters, and pieces of plot I found absurd, that doomed the book for me. Jody and his escape plan is pure farce, and Farragut's final act was also stretching credulity for me. Farragut's wife was the person he should have been imprisoned for harming, I cannot readily remember a more nauseating character.

Hopefully just the wrong book picked first, you will have to decide for yourself.

More than just a prison novel. More than just a Cheever novel. This book transcends genre and defies catagorization. "Falconer" is the absolutely gripping story of one man's struggle with himself in an environment more brutal than you can imagine. By that, I mean emotional and spiritual brutality as much as physical brutality.

The book allows us to enter Farragut's life so completely and understand the motivations that drive his decisions. We can identify with his struggles, even his drug addiction, which he feels is "a beautiful illustration of the bounds of his mortality." We yearn for his redemption, but we fear he may never achieve it. This is truly a profound and moving novel.

. . . and I agree! As implausible as it sounds, Cheever achieved literary greatness in a prison novel with its central character a college professor and murderer who is also a heroin addict and a guilty, closeted homosexual. "Oh Farragut, Farragut, why is you an addict?" asks his guard, and through flashback and reminiscence we learn how and why. One of those rare books that takes place largely in the mind but is truly gripping--and the Attica-like prison Farragut is confined to holds a few surprises of its own. It is hard to overpraise "Falconer." Honestly, if you don't like this book you don't like modern American fiction.

Upper class people don't necessarily live perfect lives. Irene uses the radio as an escape from reality. She seeks comfort from the radio, which at first she gets, but in the end she realizes she doesnt live the perfect life she thought she did. The radio is a rude awakening into reality for the Westcotts.

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."

The Swimmer by John Cheever is a pretty good book. It is about a guy named Neddy Merrill who woke up in a hangover and decided to swim from pool to pool back to his house. On the way he goes through some changes and time seems to go by a lot quicker than usual. People that he knew even manage to suprise him on the way by how they treat him. It's a good book about a journey of a boy through life. On the way, he finds things out about his life that he didn't previously know. The book also has some deep meaning and symbolism in it, so be on the look-out and pay close attention when you read it. The rest is up to you...

Cheever is a goldsmith of words, and, if you love language, the sheer pleasure of how he puts them together is enough to carry you though this picaresque family novel. The eccentric Wapshots are as unpredictable and plotless as life, and if they have dull days the author never lets us see them. In this loose, richly inventive account of Leander and Sarah and their sons, Moses and Coverly, Cheever ambles through marriage, lust, loyalty, death, and the eternal pleasures of place. Even the house has a personality: "The heart of the Wapshot house had been built before the War of Independence, but many additions had been made since then, giving the house the height and breadth of that recurrent dream in which you open a closet door and find that in your absence a corridor and a staircase have bloomed there." Reading the novel is like constantly discovering such surprises in the lives of seemingly ordinary people.

Looking over the previous customer reviews of this masterful, moving and tragicomic novel by one of this country's greatest and most melodic writers ever, I was struck by the small clique of people who claimed that the novel was "boring" or otherwise somehow unworthy of the National Book Award it had received upon publication almost half a century ago now. At first I was troubled by this; how could anyone read this and fail to experience that so-called shock of recognition, the realization that this is one of the great masterpieces in the English language. And then the answer came quite simply: Some people simply aren't capable of such recognition.

Pity, for them.

The Wapshot Chronicle is Cheever at his best. (And to the customer who wrote that Cheever was merely a short story writer and not a novelist...absurd! In addition to this book, Bullet Park and Falconer were both brilliant novels of the first order.) This is quite simply a work of art, rich in color and textured in Cheever's unique and brilliant prose. Cheever's obvious and famous love of the language shines through on every page, with a lilting, almost musical cadence. But what he offers that so many other great writers of prose can't is his wonderful storytelling gift. No one before or since has matched Cheever's ability to marry substantive narrative and an almost poetic meter with such mesmerizing results (although lesser writers such as Updike have built long and distinguished careers trying.)

I have my well-worn copy of "Chronice" here in front of me, and I have opened two pages at random. Here is a line drawn from each page, to illustrate Cheever's soaring gift:

"What a tender thing, then, is a man. How, for all his crotch-hitching and swagger, a whisper can turn his soul into a cinder. The taste of alum in the rind of a grape, the smell of the sea, the heat of the spring sun, berries bitter and sweet, a grain of sand in his teeth--all of that which he meant by life seemed taken away from him..."

And:

"Now Moses knew that women can take many forms; that it is in their power in the convulsions of love to take the shape of any beast or beauty on land or sea--fire, caves, the sweetness of haying weather--and to let break upon the mind, like light on water, its most brilliant imagery..."

And that was just two random passages! Imagine what I'd find by digging through the book in (no pun intended) earnest in search of his best Hemingwayan "true sentence"!

Boring? Well...there are no violent car chases here, no thrilling police shoot-outs, no serial killers, no massive technical military craft, no gripping courtroom dramas. So, hey, if you are "bored" by astonishing imagery, mesmerizing storytelling, marvellous and beautiful use of our language, and compelling insight into the human condition as offered by one of the most sympathetic and engaging American authors of all time, then definitely steer clear of this book; next time you're in the bookstore, just inch a little to the right and you'll find the Clancy section.

But if you have even a faintly glimmering capability to recognize greatness when you see it...

I've got a thing for John Cheever. Surely one of the best American authors of the 20th century, Cheever has written several books that I've never stopped raving about (see the following for confimation . . .)

The Wapshot Chronicle is essentially more of the same, more of the short story magic that established Cheever as what he was (and at least to me shall always remain): a magnificent story-teller and stylist who weaved brutal honesty into his poetic tales of tragedy and disillusion. There were passages--pages--of this book that I turned back to and reread not out of confusion or misunderstanding of identity, but simply for their beauty, for the firm, strong images that glimmered in the splitting of the waves crashing in my brain. I couldn't get it out of my mind for a while after reading which caused the next thing I read to suffer in comparison.

Absolutely one of the best books I have ever read.

As a memoir of a daughter's relationship with her father, this is very touching, but there is little here that sheds much light on John Cheever, the writer. Given the various levels of family dysfunction and unhappiness in Cheever's stories and novels, it is gratifying that his daughter found so much to love in her father. For a more abrasive, but still admiring view of the man, you might also enjoy reading Benjamin Cheever's novel, The Plagiarist.

This would have been a better book if Susan Cheever had more to write about. For example, she could have delved more into the business of his writing, how much money he made, or his friendships with other writers. A little bit of research wouldn't have hurt. This is a very slight book. Also, I could care to know less about Susan Cheever; i.e. how she had been the source of some of John's stories....

I read this book hoping that Johm Cheever's daughter might possess a bit of his genius. Not so. This book is humdrum.

"Treetops," while telling of one family in particular, speaks to the ever changing family unit in the 20th century where the roles began firmly established in 1900 and careened on to a helter skelter order in 2000. The role of women, children, and siblings in a man's world is dissected in "Treetops" --all through the eyes of one family child as she looks at the past. I found the book quietly moving as I learned about the family and found it reflected in my own. "Treetops" is the place we all long to go back to and the place we all long to escape from at the same time.