This is one of the best literary biographies that I have read. The biography of John Cheever is handled delicately by the author, who thoughtfully considers both his literary accomplishments and his occasionally extremely turbulent life. ( )

I have read many of Cheever's short stories and I may have read a book or two as well - but am not sure about that. His stories are usually engaging and sometimes brilliant, but I did form the opinion that he was a misogynist. In his stories he always seems to be creating unsympathetic women, and men who are caught in their webs. I was curious about his own life. And it all became clear here.

He did have problems with women. He also had severe long-term problems with alcohol. He appeared to have been self-absorbed, selfish, often thoughtless. Yet many thought of him as kind and fun to be around as well.

He was hard-working but had trouble keeping the wolves from the door. Selling short stories, of course, is rarely if ever as lucrative as selling a novel. Thus he worked hard on the few books that he did write. It took him many years for the first one, and every one was very difficult for him. He excelled at writing the short stories but not so much at the novels. Some writers are just made to create the little jewels, which honestly would be enough in this case.

One theme that was in much of his work, if not always immediately apparent, was his frustration with his sexual orientation. He was bisexual but did not admit it, and even when having sex with another man he would not admit how many such affairs he'd had over the years. I suspect that he told the same lies to himself, to be fair. Learning about this part of him illuminates a great deal that may have seemed incomprehensible in his work. Certainly I am just as much an admirer as I was before. I never hold a writer's flaws or predilections against him.

I do hope that this biography is bringing a whole new set of readers to Cheever. ( )

It's an enlightening experience to read Blake Bailey's biography, though not in the way I would have expected. Bailey is a fine writer and an obviously indefatigable researcher, but in terms of a general sense of Cheever's life, there is not much in his book that you can't get from Scott Donaldson's John Cheever (1988). Spending seven hundred pages in close proximity to this haunted, irascible, petulant, and deeply humane man's life has only confirmed my ultimate ignorance of exactly how literary attraction works and what motivates our affinity for a person's words, the majority of which, in this case, were committed to paper quite some time before I was even born. From "Cheever in Charge," n 1 book review online, May 2009. ( )

I was thinking I might revisit this book next summer here at my cabin as I do like the writing of Blake Bailey. There is no doubt this is a very good book and well-written. But my problem lies with John Cheever. I have never read his fiction and really do not have any desire to do so. I really do not even like the man from what I have learned of him thus far. So, for the sake of what time remains to me to read the books I must in order to better myself and fulfill me, I must abandon this work permanently. My rating is as it reflects my opinion thus far. It was just OK. Had Bailey overwhelmed me with brilliance of his own or Cheever's, I may have continued. But not now. ( )

Boy, Cheever struggles in this book. He struggles against his mother, his father, his brother, against school, against New York, against poverty, against other writers, against Yadoo, against his wife, against sex, against his kids, against his editor, against the New Yorker mag, against the suburbs, against Hollywood, against his old boy friends, against Italy, against his novel, against new boy friends and new girl friends, against paying his middle class bills, against doing readings. Against living middle class. Against country club parties, against his neighbors. Against Italy again.

You get the feeling that this biography author, Bailey, likes writing about struggling.

Anyway Cheever hasn’t struggled against alcohol yet, He is drinking a couple quarts of gin a day and I am only on page 340. Still a couple hundred pages to go. ( )