Novel
The Wapshot Chronicle
John Cheever · 1957
Synopsis
Saint-Botolphs, an old river port in Massachusetts in decline. Captain Leander Wapshot takes strollers across the bay on an old launch, the Topaze, and keeps a journal. His cousin Honora, who holds the purse strings, promises her fortune to Leander's two sons on condition that they marry and have sons of their own. The elder, Moses, leaves for Washington and a job that cannot be described; the younger, Coverly, for New York, and then a Pacific island.
Context
A short-story writer for the magazine since 1935, its author published this first novel at nearly forty-five; the book is partly autobiographical, and its imaginary town is inspired by those of the coast around Quincy. It ranks sixty-third in the list of the hundred best English-language novels of the century compiled in 1998 by the Modern Library. It had a sequel seven years later, and it is for his short stories that the author's reputation has remained soundest.
Who it is for
A novel of medium length, loosely constructed and full of digressions. The father's journal interrupts the narrative at intervals. Translated by Geneviève Naudin.
Prizes and reception
National Book Award 1958; the sequel earned its author the Howells Medal of the American Academy in 1965.
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