Just One More Time – John Cheever

I beg you to stop what you’re doing and read ‘Just One More Time’, I’ll wait. (At this point I’ll assume you have Cheever’s collected stories handy, if not, buy it here.)

Okay. You’ve read it…right? Did you ever wonder what people were like before Netflix and the Internet…even cell phones. When you knew everyone in your apartment building, and it seemed that most people were good mannered, dressed well, and invested in the stock market. You know…when men wore hats everyday. Cheever offers a peak into the mind of a man who is watching his own neighbors go from skid row to the front row.

The doorman smirks at the Beers, they’ve lost all their money on the stock market, including the millions (Cheever must have really been seeing stars if he thought people could only loose millions on the stock market) that they’ve inherited. The Beers are a funny bunch, they are several months past due on the rent and it never really matters since they seem to be eternally optimistic. I’ve known people like this in my life, and it’s not easy to enjoy their company, because things always go right for them in the end. Cheever talks about the Beers when they “kited checks” and borrowed someones car, crashing it and walking away without a scratch or a care in the world. But in the social structure of Cheever’s New York City, the Beers are constantly on the move, looking for the next free meal, or a stiff drink.

This story is gloriously quick, sly and extremely cutting; as it speaks to a class of people that no longer exist. The cocktail crowd, the social structure of a neighborhood, and the countless families with fathers who work day jobs and wives who tend to the homestead. In the end the Beers and their wealth return, and they sweep down to save the day. But you knew that already…right?

-JR

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The Nervous Breakdown

January 16, 2010 at 9:01 am

[...] whose life was documented in a lengthy biography. I realized that Cheever and his short stories spoke to me as a man, husband, father, in the same way the Don Draper spoke to me for thirteen weeks during the [...]

jonathan evison

January 16, 2010 at 1:31 pm

. . .glad to see one of your photos for the first time in awhile!