The Wapshot Chronicle

Last updated
The Wapshot Chronicle
WapshotChronicle.JPG
First edition
Author John Cheever
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Publisher Harper & Brothers
Publication date
March 25, 1957 [1]
Media typePrint
Pages307

The Wapshot Chronicle is the debut novel by American author John Cheever about an eccentric family that lives in a Massachusetts fishing village. Published in 1957, it won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction in 1958, [2] and was followed by a sequel, The Wapshot Scandal , published in 1964.

The Wapshot Chronicle is the sometimes-humorous story of Leander Wapshot, his eccentric Cousin Honora, and his sons, Moses and Coverly, as they all deal with life. The story is somewhat autobiographical, particularly regarding the character of Coverly, who, like Cheever, experiences feelings of bisexuality.

The novel was Cheever's first, though he had previously written short stories. It was also the first novel selected for the Book of the Month Club to include the word fuck in the narrative. [3]

In 1998, the Modern Library ranked The Wapshot Chronicle 63rd on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. [4]

Adaptations

In 2009, Audible.com produced an audio version of The Wapshot Chronicle, narrated by Joe Barrett, as part of its Modern Vanguard line of audiobooks.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Updike</span> American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic

John Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once, Updike published more than twenty novels, more than a dozen short-story collections, as well as poetry, art and literary criticism and children's books during his career.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Irving</span> American-Canadian novelist and screenwriter (born 1942)

John Winslow Irving is an American-Canadian novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Penn Warren</span> American poet, novelist, and literary critic

Robert Penn Warren was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the literary journal The Southern Review with Cleanth Brooks in 1935. He received the 1947 Pulitzer Prize for the Novel for All the King's Men (1946) and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1958 and 1979. He is the only person to have won Pulitzer Prizes for both fiction and poetry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bernard Malamud</span> American writer (1914–1986)

Bernard Malamud was an American novelist and short story writer. Along with Saul Bellow, Joseph Heller, Norman Mailer and Philip Roth, he was one of the best known American Jewish authors of the 20th century. His baseball novel, The Natural, was adapted into a 1984 film starring Robert Redford. His 1966 novel The Fixer, about antisemitism in the Russian Empire, won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Cheever</span> American novelist and short story writer (1912–1982)

John William Cheever was an American short story writer and novelist. He is sometimes called "the Chekhov of the suburbs". His fiction is mostly set in the Upper East Side of Manhattan; the Westchester suburbs; old New England villages based on various South Shore towns around Quincy, Massachusetts, where he was born; and Italy, especially Rome. His short stories included "The Enormous Radio", "Goodbye, My Brother", "The Five-Forty-Eight", "The Country Husband", and "The Swimmer", and he also wrote five novels: The Wapshot Chronicle , The Wapshot Scandal, Bullet Park (1969), Falconer (1977) and a novella Oh What a Paradise It Seems (1982).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Jones (author)</span> American writer

James Ramon Jones was an American novelist known for his explorations of World War II and its aftermath. He won the 1952 National Book Award for his first published novel, From Here to Eternity, which was adapted for the big screen immediately and made into a television series a generation later.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Stone (novelist)</span> American writer

Robert Anthony Stone was an American novelist, journalist, and college professor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rick Moody</span> American novelist

Hiram Frederick Moody III is an American novelist and short story writer best known for the 1994 novel The Ice Storm, a chronicle of the dissolution of two suburban Connecticut families over Thanksgiving weekend in 1973, which brought him widespread acclaim, became a bestseller, and was made into the film The Ice Storm. Many of his works have been praised by fellow writers and critics alike.

<i>The Stories of John Cheever</i> 1978 short story collection by John Cheever

The Stories of John Cheever is a 1978 short story collection by American author John Cheever. It contains some of his most famous stories, including "The Enormous Radio", "Goodbye, My Brother", "The Country Husband", "The Five-Forty-Eight" and "The Swimmer". It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1979 and its first paperback edition won a 1981 National Book Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Victor LaValle</span> American writer

Victor LaValle is an American author. He is the author of a short-story collection, Slapboxing with Jesus, and five novels, The Ecstatic,Big Machine,The Devil in Silver,The Changeling, and Lone Women. His fantasy-horror novella The Ballad of Black Tom won the 2016 Shirley Jackson Award for best novella. LaValle writes fiction primarily, though he has also written essays and book reviews for GQ, Essence Magazine, The Fader, and The Washington Post, among other publications.

Larry Curtis Heinemann was an American novelist born and raised in Chicago. His published work – three novels and a memoir – is primarily concerned with the Vietnam War.

Allan Gurganus is an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist whose work, which includes Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All and Local Souls, is often influenced by and set in his native North Carolina.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Susan Cheever</span> American author

Susan Cheever is an American author and a prize-winning best-selling writer well known for her memoir, her writing about alcoholism, and her intimate understanding of American history. She is a recipient of the PEN New England Award. She currently teaches in the MFA program at The New School in New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rick Riordan</span> American author (born 1964)

Richard Russell Riordan Jr. is an American author, best known for writing the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series. Riordan's books have been translated into forty-two languages and sold more than thirty million copies in the United States. 20th Century Fox adapted the first two books of his Percy Jackson series as part of a series of films in which Riordan was not involved. Riordan currently serves as a co-creator and executive producer on the television series adaption of the book series that was released on Disney+ in 2023. Riordan's books have also spawned other related media, such as graphic novels and short story collections.

<i>Gone-Away Lake</i>

Gone-Away Lake is a children's novel written by Elizabeth Enright, illustrated by Beth and Joe Krush, and published by Harcourt in 1957. It was a runner-up for the annual Newbery Medal and was named to the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award list in 1970. It tells the story of cousins who spend a summer exploring and discover a lost lake and the two people who still live there.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lauren Groff</span> American writer

Lauren Groff is an American novelist and short story writer. She has written five novels and two short story collections, including Fates and Furies (2015), Florida (2018), Matrix (2022), and The Vaster Wilds (2023).

<i>The Wapshot Scandal</i> Novel by John Cheever

The Wapshot Scandal is the second novel by American writer John Cheever. The book followed The Wapshot Chronicle, and was awarded the 1965 William Dean Howells Medal. The scandal of the title involves one of the Wapshot wives running off with a 19-year-old bagboy from the local A&P and making a life with him in Italy.

The National Book Award for Fiction is one of five annual National Book Awards, which recognize outstanding literary work by United States citizens. Since 1987, the awards have been administered and presented by the National Book Foundation, but they are awards "by writers to writers." The panelists are five "writers who are known to be doing great work in their genre or field."

<i>The Housebreaker of Shady Hill and Other Stories</i>

The Housebreaker of Shady Hill and Other Stories is a collection of short fiction by John Cheever. Composed of eight short stories, the volume was first published by Harper & Bros. in 1958. Reissued by Hillman/MacFadden in 1961, the works are included in The Stories of John Cheever (1978). The works were originally published individually in The New Yorker.

References

  1. "Books Published Today". The New York Times : 22. March 25, 1957.
  2. "National Book Awards – 1958". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-14.
    (With essay by Neil Baldwin Archived 2015-10-19 at the Wayback Machine from the Awards 50-year anniversary publications and from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.) "1958 National Book Awards Winners and Finalists, the National Book Foundation". Archived from the original on October 19, 2015. Retrieved 2016-02-09.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  3. Cheever, John. The Wapshot Chronicle. HarperCollins, 2003, ISBN   0-06-052887-7, pg. xiii.
  4. 100 Best Novels
Awards
Preceded by National Book Award for Fiction
1958
Succeeded by