Collected Stories

Description

The complete collection of award-winning stories from one of the finest American writers of the last century John Cheever's Collected Stories explores the delicate psychological frameworks of 20th century suburbia. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HANIF KUREISHI This outstanding collection by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist John Cheever shows the power and range of one of the finest short story writers of the last century. Stories of love and of squalor, they include masterpieces such as 'The Swimmer' and 'Goodbye, My Brother' and date from the time of his honourable discharge from the Army at the end of the Second World War.

John Cheever was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 1912, and he went to school at Thayer Academy in South Braintree. He is the author of seven collections of stories and five novels. His first novel, The Wapshot Chronicle, won the 1958 National Book Award. In 1965 he received the Howells Medal for Fiction from the National Academy of Arts and Letters and in 1978 he won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Shortly before his death in 1982 he was awarded the National Medal for Literature.

I've read nothing better this year than The Stories of John Cheever. -- Peter McKay * Daily Mail, Book of the Year * Cheever's accomplishment in his exacting art is proportionally large, as solid as it is brilliant, and likely to endure * New York Review of Books * Currently I'm reading John Cheever's Collected Stories. My God, he was good -- David Mitchell 'The Swimmer' is a masterpiece of mystery, language and sorrow -- Michael Chabon I reread Cheever's 'The Swimmer' late the other night. It had the effect that reading Cheever always has: it made me want to get up and start the futile task of trying to write something as measured yet mysteriously, heart-judderingly unexpected for myself -- Gordon Burns * Sunday Times *