New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009. First Edition. Hardcover. Octavo, 770 pages; VG/G+; spine black and gray, with white lettering; dust jacket protected with a mylar covering; mild shelf wear and scuffing; mild wear to upper edge of dust jacket; mild wear to head and tail of jacket; price uncut '$35.00'; previous owner's name at front free end paper; inscribed by Bailey at title page; pages clean; shelved Lit Crit/Bio. 1341766. Shelved Dupont Bookstore.

Synopsis

From the acclaimed author of A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates comes the unforgettable life of John Cheever (1912--1982), a man who spent much of his career impersonating a perfect suburban gentleman, the better to become one of the foremost chroniclers of postwar America. "I was born into no true class," Cheever mused in his journal, "and it was my decision, early in life, to insinuate myself into the middle class, like a spy, so that I would have an advantageous position of attack, but I seem now and then to have forgotten my mission and to have taken my disguises too seriously." Written with unprecedented access to essential sources--including Cheever's massive journal, only a fraction of which has ever been published--Blake Bailey's biography reveals the troubled but strangely lovable man behind the disguises, an artist who delighted in the everyday radiance of the world while yearning, above all, "to be illustrious."Cheever's was a soul in conflict: he was a proud Yankee who flaunted his lineage while deploring the provincialism of his Quincy, Massachusetts, family circle; a high-school dropout who published his first story at eighteen; a pioneer of suburban realist fiction who continually pushed the boundaries of realism; a dire alcoholic who recovered to write the great novel Falconer; a secret bisexual who struggled with his longings and his fierce homophobia in a revolving door of self-loathing and hedonism. We see a man who concealed his anxieties behind the mask of a genial Westchester squire--a paterfamilias in Brooks Brothers clothes whose world was peopled by legendary writers and beautiful women (Malcolm Cowley, Saul Bellow, William Maxwell, Hope Lange, and John Updike, among them); whose groundbreaking work landed him on the covers of Time and Newsweek; a man whose demons and desperation were never quite vanquished by the joy he found in his work.Blake Bailey has written a luminous biography, a revelation of a writer of timeless fiction and of the man behind the page.From the Hardcover edition.

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Details

Bookseller: Second Story Books, ABAA (US)
Bookseller's Inventory #: 1341766
Title: CHEEVER: A LIFE [SIGNED]
Author: Bailey, Blake
Format/Binding: Hardcover
Book Condition: Used
Quantity Available: 1
Edition: First Edition
ISBN 10: 1400043948
ISBN 13: 9781400043941
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Place of Publication: New York
Date Published: 2009

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Second Story Books, ABAA

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Second Story Books, ABAA

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About Second Story Books, ABAA

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Inscribed: When a book is described as being inscribed, it indicates that a short note written by the author or a previous owner has been...
Shelf Wear: Shelf wear (shelfwear) describes damage caused over time to a book by placing and removing a book from a shelf. This damage is...
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Tail: The heel of the spine.
Octavo: Another of the terms referring to page or book size, octavo refers to a standard printer's sheet folded four times, producing...
First Edition: In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
Spine: The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....