When All the Men Wore Hats - by Susan Cheever (Hardcover)

About the Book

"A sympathetic and illuminating account of The Stories of John Cheever, and the intersecting life and work of legendary American writer John Cheever, as told by his eldest daughter"--

Book Synopsis

A sympathetic and illuminating account of the stories of John Cheever, and the intersecting life and work of the legendary writer John Cheever, as told by his eldest daughter.

The Stories of John Cheever, published in 1978, brought together some of the finest short fiction ever written. The collection was honored with the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, and it would go on to sell millions of copies and to define the American short story and shape generations of writers. Cheever's chronicles of modern life both emerged from a distinctly American culture and also created it--inspiring everything from Mad Men to a Raymond Carver story, from rock songs to a Seinfeld episode.
Growing up, Susan Cheever, John Cheever's eldest child and only daughter, read what he read, heard what he heard, bantered and gossiped with him and her brothers and mother at the dinner table, and later watched her father type on the cheap yellow paper he favored. A daughter much like Susan appears in many of Cheever's stories and a family much like theirs is at the center of his writing.

In When All the Men Wore Hats, Susan Cheever looks back on her father's work and seeks to understand the connections between art and life. How did a bit of local gossip, a slice of Greek myth, and a new translation of Madame Bovary somehow become a brilliant gem like "The Country Husband" or "The Swimmer"? In her 1984 book Home Before Dark, published two years after her father's death, Cheever wrote movingly about her father and the secrets he kept, but here, years later, she tells the story of the remarkable stories themselves, six of which appear in full in the book's appendix.

Review Quotes

"Since 1978, The Stories of John Cheever, the C swooping grandly over its red cover, has been a crown jewel of American publishing. Now John's daughter, Susan, has pried some of its precious contents loose, like one of the Louvre burglars, and put them under a loupe. . . Part memoir, part seminar . . . an all wry, twinkling delight . . . [P]ull me up a chair." --Alexandra Jacobs, The New York Times

"[Susan Cheever's] first book about her father fused memoir and biography; this one fuses memoir and literary appreciation. She aims to help us read Cheever's best stories, and if in this "sequel of sorts" she seems to be squeezing one last drop, she provides welcome context, clues to her father's very particular genius. As a writer and a daughter of a writer, she's also exploring the wellsprings of creativity, which she does with openhearted elegance." --Adam Begley, The Atlantic

"When All the Men Wore Hats is most affecting when [Susan Cheever] describes how her relationship with her father has deepened since his death. Examining his stories has led her to understand him in ways that weren't available to her when he was alive." --Donna Rifkind, The Wall Street Journal

"Using six of John Cheever's stories as points of reference, Cheever serves as a masterful captain, urging When All the Men Wore Hats to deftly navigate the murky boundaries between biography, memoir, criticism, and craft lesson." --Stephen Patrick Bell, BOMB

"Illuminating." --Christopher Borrelli, The Chicago Tribune

"Readers encountering John Cheever's brilliant short stories for the first time will find When All the Men Wore Hats an illuminating companion, while longtime admirers rediscovering them with the benefit of Susan Cheever's astute, revealing commentary will enjoy reading them with fresh eyes." --Harvey Freedenberg, BookPage

"By turns affectionate and admiring but also clear-sighted and unsparing . . . An eloquent and fully immersive portrait of a renowned author." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Simultaneously a tribute to her father and an exposé of his failings, Cheever's narrative offers bittersweet grace to a man whose life was a kind of fiction and whose fiction drew mercilessly from his life. It's equal parts wrenching and edifying." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Lively, provocative memoir. Susan Cheever . . . moves fluidly between jaunty literary analyses and charged memories of a father." --Margaret Quamme, Booklist

"Remarkable. . . sui generis. . . This illuminating book fills in many blanks about a troubled and troubling life." --Ellen Gilbert, Library Journal (starred review)

About the Author

Susan Cheever is the author of many books on American history, the most recent of which is Drinking in America: Our Secret History, published in 2015. She is also the author of numerous novels; My Name Is Bill: Bill Wilson--His Life and the Creation of Alcoholics Anonymous, a biography of the Alcoholics Anonymous cofounder Bill Wilson; and Home Before Dark, a memoir about her father, John Cheever. She teaches at Bennington College and the New School in their MFA programs.