The Wapshot Chronicle (1957) - John Cheever

Written by John Cheever
Read by Joe Barrett
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps

· Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
· Release date: 08-11-09
· Publisher: Brillance Audio

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.

There are a lot of accidental deaths by drowning or in car crashes. Mostly the story is of two brothers interspersed with excerpts from a diary kept by their father that chronicles his life and gives us family secrets.

An unmarried aunt controls the family fortune. When she sees her two nephews begin fooling around with the local girls she orders them out into the world. One goes to New York and one to Washington DC. They both eventually marry and end up in troubled marriages.

Tragic and funny, ribald and splendidly picaresque, The Wapshot Chronicle is a family narrative in the tradition of Trollope, Dickens, and Henry James.