January 30th, 2009 / 4:56 pm
 Author Spotlight & Excerpts

Cheever, in his boxer shorts, convinces me to continue writing short stories.

theswimmer

From the essay “Why I Write Short Stories,” which is collected in the Library of America’s upcoming John Cheever: Collected Stories and Other Writings:

To publish a definitive collection of short stories in one’s late 60s seems to me, as an American writer, a traditional and a dignified occasion, eclipsed in no way by the fact that a great many of the stories in my current collection were written in my underwear.

Another selection from the essay:

A collection of short stories appears like a lemon in the current fiction list, which is indeed a garden of love, erotic horseplay and lewd and ancient family history; but so long as we are possessed by experience that is distinguished by its intensity and its episodic nature, we will have the short story in our literature, and without a literature we will, of course, perish.

May you be correct, Cheever. The rest of this very short essay can be found here.

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7 Comments

  1. January 30th, 2009 / 5:18 pm pr—

      I love Cheever. Have you read his journals??!! The man had a huge heart and lots of troubles. “Goodby, My Brother” is burned in my brain.

  2. January 30th, 2009 / 10:34 pm Matthew Simmons—

      I haven’t. Have to take a look for them. I do enjoy Cheever.

  3. January 30th, 2009 / 6:34 pm Matthew Simmons—

      I haven’t. Have to take a look for them. I do enjoy Cheever.

  4. January 31st, 2009 / 2:28 pm Doug Snell—

      Don’t you think it’s weird that when people here post about Internet publishing, there are like 80 comments, but when somebody posts meaningfully about John Cheever, there are only two or three?

  5. January 31st, 2009 / 10:28 am Doug Snell—

      Don’t you think it’s weird that when people here post about Internet publishing, there are like 80 comments, but when somebody posts meaningfully about John Cheever, there are only two or three?

  6. January 31st, 2009 / 3:44 pm jereme—

      doug,

      no i don’t think it is weird. typically the 80 comment runs are because a.) pr/barry/me/ryan bradley are spewing off at the mouth with complete disregard to the post topic b.)some one is being confrontational (usually me) c.)actual discussion (rare)

      did you have anything meaningful to discuss re:cheever?

  7. January 31st, 2009 / 11:44 am jereme—

      doug,

      no i don’t think it is weird. typically the 80 comment runs are because a.) pr/barry/me/ryan bradley are spewing off at the mouth with complete disregard to the post topic b.)some one is being confrontational (usually me) c.)actual discussion (rare)

      did you have anything meaningful to discuss re:cheever?