July 28, 2014--Booked

I was surprised to read that John Cheever's house is for sale. The Chekhov of the Suburbs' house in the suburbs. But that should not be much of a surprise. He died in 1982 and his widow this past April. Now their writer-daughter Susan, who lives elsewhere, has it on the market. Nothing unusual about that  either except the asking price--the New York Times reports it is listed at only $525,000.

It's in a desirable New York bedroom community, Ossining (better know for being the location of Sing Sing Prison and the leaky Indian Point nuclear power plant) and is the place where Saul Bellow and Philip Roth came for dinner. $525K for all that literary history? Well, it abuts the very busy Route 9A. I suppose location, location, location.

As something of a writer and obsessed as I am by books--those I read, collect, and shelve--I was eager to learn what books were in Cheever's bookcases.

Works by Kierkegaard, Ovid, Chaucer, and The Age of Pericles, the Times reported, but also The Backyard Bird Song Guide and How to Live with a Neurotic Dog.

I was happy to learn about the neurotic dog because I worry a lot about the books on display on my bookshelves. If it were necessary to put my places on the market and the broker were to advise my executor to leave them furnished, I worry about what people will think about my reading habits.

I admit this is an attempt from beyond to influence how people regard me; but in a confessional mode, here's how I'm thinking about the books I have on my shelves in Maine--

I'm an American history buff of sorts. Of sorts because there is more on my shelves by popular historian Doris Kearns Goodwin than by the more substantial and literary Gary Wills, though I did read and am proud to display his Inventing America (about the history of the Declaration of Independence); his meditation on the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln at Gettysburg; and, of course, Nixon Agonistes.

But also shelved in my cottage are more presidential biographies by James MacGregor Burns than by Robert Merry, author of the fullest biography of James Polk, my favorite guilty-pleasure president.

There is a lot by Robert Caro--his thus-far four-volume bio of Lyndon Johnson. These are good to have read and on view because they are both page-turners and definitive. I can leave them where they are--right in the middle of my histories--and will thus probably be thought well of. But I should lower some of the Goodwins, maybe leaving No Ordinary Time where it is because I love it no matter what it reveals about my reading habits.

I also have lots or contemporary novels. Since I was in college, I wanted to be in their published company and I still have my hopes; but in the meantime, I am content to have written three non-fiction books and keep up with 25 or more novelists who are recently departed or still producing noteworthy work.

The relatively-recently-departed or retired (Philip Roth) include Graham Greene (especially his Catholic novels--The End of the Affair, The Power and Glory, and The Heart of the Matter), John Updike (the Rabbit books), Stanley Elkin (The Dick Gibson Show), and Saul Bellow (Augie March).

Among the living are Alice Munro ( The Moons of Jupiter and Dear Life), Alison Lurie (The War Between the Tates and Foreign Affairs), and Richard Russo and Richard Ford, good novelists both who can also be considered Maine writers since they spend part of the year here, Ford typing away right across the bay from us. I like to think I can see him at work if I peer hard enough, and this helps inspire me to keep writing even if I am not making the progress I aspire to.

I have read and display other Maine writers to show that I keep up with the local literary scene, though the highly-charged and hilarious work of Charlotte Chute could sustain closer, more serious consideration--she is much more than a regional writer. I love and shelve prominently The Beans of Egypt, Maine and Letourneau's Used Auto Parts. Adjacent to these brilliant and savage Chutes, in one of my bookcases, are works by other Maine writers, Cathie Pelletier among them, whose Funeral Makers is delightful, perfect for a summer day or a chilly November afternoon, and Elizabeth Strout's Pulitzer Prize winning, Olive Kitteridge though I didn't really like it and can't understand why it was so highly regarded. Must be a guy thing.

But you won't catch me reading (publicly) much less having on view anything by by far Maine's most prolific and successful writer ever--Stephen King.

However, I have still more to confess--

We have a very literate niece; and when she comes for a visit, I want her to think well of me or, if not me, at least my books.

In that spirit, I have placed on a prominent shelf a couple of Lydia Davis books (I know she loves Davis)--Can't and Won't and her Collected Stories. Then, to maintain my big-city bona fides, even when tucked away in rural Maine, I have moved to a central location a couple of books by, another niece favorite, Junot Diaz--Drown and his vibrant (another Pulitzer winner) Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Then for her to see and approve there are a few Dan Chaon's short-story collections, Among the Missing and Stay Awake, all what sensitive 25-year-olds are reading.

Also there is George Saunder's Tenth of December--it's featured in one of my bookcases even though, truthfully, I couldn't get through more than a quarter of it. Too post-modern for me. I am hoping my niece won't want to talk too much about him or it.

Davis, Chaon, Diaz, and (in spite of my opinion) Saunders are real writers who appeal across the ages, assuming people come to know about them, which folks of my age, unless they cling to the illusion of late middle-age youthfulness, are unlikely to do. That's what well-read nieces are for.

I can't aspire to Cheever standards (I couldn't get away with ordering up some Ovid) without making myself seem even more pretentious than I already am. But I was pleased to read that when he bought the Ossining house in 1961, he paid all of $37,000 for it. So maybe $525,000 isn't so disappointing. That represents a decent capital gain.

And perhaps the new owners will put up a marker saying:

John Cheever Lived Here--1961-1982

The Chekhov of the Suburbs

Loved Ovid, Backyard Birds, and Neurotic Dogs