Home Before Dark : A Personal Memoir of John Cheever by His Daughter

John Cheever wrote a number of best-selling novels - Bullet Park, The Wapshot Chronicle and Falconer - and short stories, most notably The Swimmer which was the basis of the iconic film starring Burt Lancaster. As he lay dying from cancer, Susan Cheever began to write about him in order to make sense of his life. Home Before Dark is a moving and brilliantly restrained account of John Cheever's life and work. From his early days as a penniless writer for the New Yorker to the 1960s, when he was showered with prestigious awards and fellowships, his daughter traces the course of John Cheever's extraordinary talent and his struggles with ambition, alcoholism and his private desires. 'Home Before Dark clearly demanded more from its author, more courage and force of heart than will be required of any biographer of John Cheever...Intimate, deeply felt and often harrowing' - New York Times