THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLE - Softcover

John Cheever

3.76

7,300 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0345294084 ISBN 13: 9780345294081

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1986

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When The Wapshot Chronicle was published in 1957, John Cheever was already recognized as a writer of superb short stories. But The Wapshot Chronicle, which won the 1958 National Book Award, established him as a major novelist.

Based in part on Cheever s adolescence in New England, the novel follows the destinies of the impecunious and wildly eccentric Wapshots of St. Botolphs, a quintessential Massachusetts fishing village. Here are the stories of Captain Leander Wapshot, venerable sea dog and would-be suicide; of his licentious older son, Moses; and of Moses adoring and errant younger brother, Coverly. Tragic and funny, ribald and splendidly picaresque, The Wapshot Chronicle is a family narrative in the tradition of Trollope, Dickens, and Henry James.

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Review:

"Cheever's debut novel is skittish, mercurial and ringing with life" (Guardian)

"The best introduction to Cheever's work...richly inventive and vividly told" (New York Times Magazine)

"A tapestry woven from the threads of emotion, tragedy, comedy...and the irony so wonderfully evident in the author's short stories...a literary mosaic...Cheever is a pleasure to read" (San Francisco Chronicle)

"A brilliantly written novel, vastly and sometimes sadly, amusing" (Time)

Book Description:

The first novel John Cheever wrote is a wonderful introduction to his writing; clever, funny, charming and bursting with life

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