# The Stories of 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.

## Stories

* "Goodbye, My Brother"
* "The Common Day"
* "The Enormous Radio"
* "O City of Broken Dreams"
* "The Hartleys"
* "The Sutton Place Story"
* "The Summer Farmer"
* "Torch Song"
* "The Pot of Gold"
* "Clancy in the Tower of Babel"
* "Christmas is a Sad Season for the Poor"
* "The Season of Divorce"
* "The Chaste Clarissa"
* "The Cure"
* "The Superintendent"
* "The Children"
* "The Sorrows of Gin"
* "O Youth and Beauty!"
* "The Day the Pig Fell Into the Well"
* "The Five-Forty-Eight"
* "Just One More Time"
* "The Housebreaker of Shady Hill"
* "The Bus to St. James's"
* "The Worm in the Apple"
* "The Trouble of Marcie Flint"
* "The Bella Lingua"
* "The Wrysons"
* "The Country Husband"
* "The Duchess"
* "The Scarlet Moving Van"
* "Just Tell Me Who It Was"
* "Brimmer"
* "The Golden Age"
* "The Lowboy"
* "The Music Teacher"
* "A Woman Without a Country"
* "The Death of Justina"
* "Clementina"
* "Boy in Rome"
* "A Miscellany of Characters That Will Not Appear"
* "The Chimera"
* "The Seaside Houses"
* "The Angel of the Bridge"
* "The Brigadier and the Golf Widow"
* "A Vision of the World"
* "Reunion"
* "An Educated American Woman"
* "Metamorphoses"
* "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin"
* "Montraldo"
* "The Ocean"
* "Marito in Città"
* "The Geometry of Love"
* "The Swimmer"
* "The World of Apples"
* "Another Story"
* "Percy"
* "The Fourth Alarm"
* "Artemis, the Honest Well Digger"
* "Three Stories"
* "The Jewels of the Cabots"

## The John Cheever Audio Collection

In 2004, Caedmon released a recorded compilation of selected stories from The Stories of John Cheever, each read either by Cheever, George Plimpton, or a professional actor. Benjamin Cheever reads the introduction written by his father, and the full track list of stories is as follows:
* "The Enormous Radio" read by Meryl Streep
* "The Five-Forty-Eight" read by Edward Herrmann
* "O City of Broken Dreams" read by Blythe Danner
* "Christmas is a Sad Season for the Poor" read by George Plimpton
* "The Season of Divorce" read by Edward Herrmann
* "The Brigadier and the Golf Widow" read by Peter Gallagher
* "The Sorrows of Gin" read by Meryl Streep
* "O Youth and Beauty!" read by Peter Gallagher
* "The Chaste Clarissa" read by Blythe Danner
* "The Jewels of the Cabots" read by George Plimpton
* "The Death of Justina" read by John Cheever
* "The Swimmer" read by John Cheever
Reception to the collection was positive. Publishers Weekly called the readers a "first-class lineup of narrators" and stated that "Cheever's archived readings that steal the show. His performance of "The Swimmer," in particular, boldly displays his contempt for the country-club set, while still evoking readers' sympathy for the hapless main character. The inclusion of [his] readings makes for a deeply personal, resonant finale to a truly superb production."