Pulitzer Prize Fiction Winner

The Stories of John Cheever

by John Cheever

Summary

A career spanning gathering of sixty one stories that map the cocktail parties, commuter trains, and quiet desperations of midcentury suburban life in New York and New England. Cheever's voice moves easily from social comedy to near mythic strangeness, finding moral weight in swimming pools, train platforms, and adulterous afternoons. Readers consider the volume one of the great single author short fiction collections in American literature.

Historical Context & Significance

Many called Cheever the O'Hara of the suburbs. This win was a crowning achievement for a writer who had spent 40 years mastering the short story form.