Seated at the table, high in her firmament of gin, she looked critically at her brother and his wife, remembering some real or imagined injustice of her youth, for with any proximity the constellations of some families generate among themselves an asperity that nothing can sweeten.

" Cheever's son Benjamin was born on May 4 1948. Cheever spent the summer of 1934 at Yaddo which would serve as a second home for much of his life.

Botolphs in the Wapshot novels) characterized by abiding cultural traditions and a profound sense of community as opposed to the alienating nomadism of modern suburbia. A compilation of his short stories The Stories of John Cheever won the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and a National Book Critics Circle Award and its first paperback edition won a 1981 National Book Award.