The Wapshot Scandal, John Cheever, Harper & Row, 1964, 302 pp
(Well, I am back. My husband, who has always been lucky, has recovered well. We have adjusted to a new normal involving a few tweaks on our lifestyle. Honestly, I think it took me longer to recover from all the worry and stress than it took him to recover from what happened to his body. It could have been so much worse and I am filled with gratitude to whoever or whatever watches over us.)
The Wapshot Scandal was John Cheever's follow up novel to his National Book Award winner, The Wapshot Chronicle. I truly enjoyed the earlier novel. This one still had a sort of humor but was darker. It is set in contemporary early 1960s New England, several decades later than the end of the former novel. Life has become more troubled even though prosperity has been brought by the postwar boom.
The Cold War, the threat of nuclear annihilation, hangs like a miasma of anxiety over the two Wapshot brothers. It festers as a deep ennui for their wives. The matriarchal great-aunt of the Wapshot family, whom the brothers are counting on for a large inheritance, failed to pay her income tax and stands to lose her fortune to the IRS.
I think Cheever did nail the underlying zeitgeist of the times. Though the Wapshots were always a bit outside the laws and conventions of their late 19th and early 20th century New England society, these brothers and their wives are stuck between an unthinkable future and the realities of their present. The wives want passion, freedom and a purpose. The men don't seem to know what they want.
Cheever writes in a readable style and it is impossible not to be drawn in. I remember my parents and their friends discussing the state of the world and society when I was in high school. Cheever brings those same issues to life through his characters, their anxieties and actions. His story is grim at times but also made me laugh while I groaned.
I left for college and adult life in 1965, determined to get what those wives wanted, to stop war and the bomb, to find the purpose of my life. In this novel, I found yet another conception of what I left behind.
SO glad that things are working out for you (both!). LONG may it continue....
ReplyDeleteYes, we have some years left in us yet!
DeleteGlad you are back Judy. With Cheever no less. Interesting to hear about the Wapshots and the zeitgeist of those times.
ReplyDeleteYes, Cheever has been patiently waiting in my notebook until I could get it together.
DeleteI'm glad to hear your husband is doing well and that you are recovering from the stress. Cheever certainly takes us back to the era of the '60s. I've read some of his books from that period but not this one. I don't know that I will, but I agree with you that he had a very readable style of writing.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Dorothy. I am glad I discovered Cheever through My Big Fat Reading Project.
DeleteGlad everything is finally settling down well. Hope it continues this way!
ReplyDeleteMe too! And I hope that things will settle down for you too!
Deletehospitals are the pits even tho the alternative is worse... i'm glad things seem to have turned out all right... as we age, stuff happens... here, too...
ReplyDeleteThis aging stuff is not exactly my forte but we were brought out of a great deal of denial, that's for sure. That said, hospitals are good if your life needs saving. They just get right down to it!
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