Collected Stories

Everything makes much more sense now.

Excellent book. This Pulitzer Prize winning collection of short stories spans Cheever's entire career. The back of the book says, “These stories seem at times to be stories of a long-lost world when the city of New York was still filled with a river light, when you heard the Benny Goodman quarters from a radio in the corner stationary stores, and when almost everybody wore a hat.” The stories do all take place from the 1940s to the 1970s, and all seem from a time one can only imagine living in. However, at the end of the day, the people are still the same, lying, cheating, and just acting strange. While a few of Cheever's stories aren't that good, most are good, and some are just fantastic. The real treat is the excellent writing. Writers this good don't come along often.