The Wapshot Chronicle Book

… we might climb the stairs and pry into things of more pertinence. There is Leander's bureau drawer, where we find a withered rose - once yellow - and a wreath of yellow hair, the butt end of a Roman candle that was fired at the turn of the century, a boiled shirt on which an explicit picture of a naked woman is drawn in red ink, a necklace made of champagne corks and a loaded revolver.


4 ½ stars

John Cheever (1912-1982) sold a short story to The New Yorker in 1935, the first of many. His reputation as a short story writer rose rapidly, and his first novel, The Wapshot Chronicle , won the National Book award in 1958. He later published three other novels: The Wapshot Scandal (1965), Bullet Park (1969), and Falconer (1977). But he was primarily known for his short stories; some critics have ventured that Cheever is one of the most important short fiction writers of the 20th century, and he has been referred to as "the Chekhov of the suburbs".

Born in New York, Cheever's stories are set in Manhattan, the Westchester suburbs, and the shore towns along the coast that stretches from New York City to Boston. Connecting Cheever's stories to the suburban world does not mean that he romanticized the suburban lifestyle as it developed in the decades in which he matured and wrote. Wiki notes that many of his works also express "a nostalgia for a vanishing way of life, characterized by abiding cultural traditions and a profound sense of community" in the smaller towns along this coast, "as opposed to the alienating nomadism of modern suburbia".


The Wapshot Chronicle

Being a chronicle, we might surmise that the novel tells of "important historical events"; but this would be ironic, for the events told in the third person narrative have significance only for the characters living them, and a few friends and neighbors in the mythical town of St. Botolphs, located just inland of the coast mentioned above. Those characters being the father Leander Wapshot, the mother (Mrs. Wapshot to us, though Leander reveals in his inner dialogues that her name is Sarah), Leander's two teen-aged sons Moses and Coverly, and Leander's "cousin" (though with a slight complication involving separate grandmothers) Honora. She, Honora, plays a role outsized for a cousin, resulting from the facts that (a) she inherited quite a sum, (b) she was brought up by Leander's father (one of her "uncles" - with that same complication), (c) she has never married, (d) she desires to leave her wealth (which is also a sometime loan source to Leander) to his sons, but (e) only on condition that they themselves produce male heirs. A telling fork in the chronicle results from Honora unfortunately witnessing a happening of sexual nature involving one of the sons.

But that previously mentioned Cheever theme of "nostalgia for a vanishing way of life" was what I soon sensed myself as I began reading the novel. Actual dates are not mentioned often, especially in the first chunk, yet as I read Cheever's strange and poignant prose, I felt that I was reading a picture - a Norman Rockwell painting illustrating small town New England life in the first third of the century.





Here read a lengthy passage about the Wapshot house - set rather dilapidatedly on its acreage some distance outside St. Botolphs - and its residents.
The house is easy enough to describe but how to write a summer's day in an old garden? ... It is dusk and the family has gathered … Leander is drinking bourbon and the parrot hangs in a cage by the kitchen door. A cloud passes over the low sun, darkening the valley, and they feel a deep and momentary uneasiness as if they apprehended how darkness can fall over the continents of the mind. The wind freshens and then they are all cheered as if this reminded them of their recuperative powers … But as we see the Wapshots, spread out in their rose garden above the river, listening to the parrot and feeling the balm of those evening winds that, in New England, smell so of maidenly things - of orris root and toilet soap and rented rooms, wet by an open window in a thunder shower; of chamber pots and sorrel soap and roses and gingham and lawn; of choir robes and copies of the New Testament bound in limp morocco and pastures that are for sale, blooming now with rue and fern - as we see the flowers, staked by Leander with broken hockey sticks and mop and broom handles, as we see the scarecrow in the cornfield wears the red coat of the defunct St. Botolphs Horse Guards and that the blue water of the river below them seems mingled with our history, it would be wrong to say as an architectural photographer once did, after photographing the side door, "It's just like a scene from J.P. Marquand."





The adventures of Leander's sons, as they set sail from St. Botolphs to make their own stabs at life, as well as the continuing events of Leander, Mrs. Wapshot, and Honora back in St. Botolphs, form the larger part of the Wapshot family's chronicle. Though it is not heart-poundingly exciting, not saturated with either sex or violence, there are some surprisingly dark, or perhaps better described as foreboding and unexpected, happenings. These not only lend some spice to the consistently interesting read, but are (wiki tells us) another characteristic of Cheever's outlook - this darker streak apparently connected with Cheever's hidden homosexuality, and associated feelings of guilt at this concealed inner life; the agony of this guilt assuaged by drink.

There is an interview with his daughter published in the Guardian ( ) in which she expresses very positive feelings towards her father, and a sadness that he felt so much guilt about something that has ceased to produce that shame/guilt burden so many were condemned to until more enlightened recent years.

Some readers will not be particularly thrilled with this rather tame story, or with the somewhat soft landing of the ending. But for me the book was a wonderful read. If you have a possible interest it might be a good idea to check out some of his short stories to see if they might provide an impetus to read this novel (or his final novel Falconer, thought by some to be his best.) Stories worth seeking out include "The Enormous Radio", "Goodbye, My Brother", "The Five-Forty-Eight", "The Country Husband", and "The Swimmer".

For myself, I'll be looking for more by Cheever.


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