the passed-out man lies motionless, politely asks him three times, âCanât you find your key? Canât you find your key? Canât you find your key?â Some of the Cheever familyâs humiliation speaks in this story, and some of Johnâs own.
With nearly everyone fallen on hard times, it was easy to portray oneself as having once had a genteel background. So in a number of stories, near-indigent characters reminisce about the servants they used to have and the high-stakes bridge games their mothers played in and how those days are gone forever and the best they can hope for is a house in Westchester or Connecticut where they can have a garden and a family and some semblance of a comfortable life, and not many of them are going to reach even that goal.
However unlikely its fulfillment might be, people nonetheless refused to give up their dreamânot a dream of the golden mountains where all might thrive but of their private gold mine or at least a place in the country where they might be better off than others. It is this thirst for gain that confounds the Communist Girsdansky in âIn Passingâ (1936), Cheeverâs forthright tale of why it wonât happen here. With the passion of the committed, Girsdansky âspoke of revolution as if it were something that he would see on the next day, or the next.â His great selling point is poverty. âWhy should you be poor when you can do away with poverty?â he asks his street-corner audiences. But his voice is dry, he lacks humor and human warmth, and the listeners drift away. Tom, the narrator, is living with European immigrants in Saratoga and working at the five-and-dime. All around him he encounters those who resist Girsdanskyâs message. The immigrants have come to what they think of as a land of opportunity. The petty gamblers of the town have ânothing in their faces but a love of money, and the incorrigible dream of big money.â His younger brother daydreams about travel and making a fortune and lots of women. Even his parents, about to be dispossessed of their home, continue to pursue the ever-receding bonanza. At the end Tom takes the night bus to scratch out a chancy existence in New York City, while Girsdansky continues to preach to the trees and the lampposts.
Communism was not the answer, then, at least not in America. Still, simply surviving in New York remained a trial for Cheever. He might not have made it at all but for the generosity of Yaddo, where he spent most of his time from late 1935 to early 1938. During the long cold winter of â35, he sounded out Elizabeth Ames about the possibility of a summer job running the launch at Triuna, the three-island complex on Lake George owned by the Yaddo foundation. In April he renewed the inquiry. By this time The New Yorker had taken the two stories, and heâd acquired as his first agent Maxim Lieber (a man who specialized in representing writers with liberal sympathies). But he needed time to write, he told Ames, and âwould be glad to work for the chance.â Couldnât a summer job at Yaddo âbe fitted inâ with writing hours?
This query elicited an unsympathetic reply in which Elizabeth Ames advised Cheever to spend more time at some occupation other than writing. He had to learn to support himself, she said. He should adjust to conditions rather than complaining about them. In some exasperation Cheever wrote back that he had held odd jobs all his life, and had supported himself through the winter doing synopses for M-G-M. But as of May 1935 the supply of jobs had run dry. He had put in applications for everything from busboy to copywriter, with no results.
At this Ames relented. Cheever went to Yaddo for the month of August and Lake George for the month of September. In Saratoga he saw a lot of the racing season, piling up background for future stories. On his way south, Cheever stopped in Boston for two days among the
With nearly everyone fallen on hard times, it was easy to portray oneself as having once had a genteel background. So in a number of stories, near-indigent characters reminisce about the servants they used to have and the high-stakes bridge games their mothers played in and how those days are gone forever and the best they can hope for is a house in Westchester or Connecticut where they can have a garden and a family and some semblance of a comfortable life, and not many of them are going to reach even that goal.
However unlikely its fulfillment might be, people nonetheless refused to give up their dreamânot a dream of the golden mountains where all might thrive but of their private gold mine or at least a place in the country where they might be better off than others. It is this thirst for gain that confounds the Communist Girsdansky in âIn Passingâ (1936), Cheeverâs forthright tale of why it wonât happen here. With the passion of the committed, Girsdansky âspoke of revolution as if it were something that he would see on the next day, or the next.â His great selling point is poverty. âWhy should you be poor when you can do away with poverty?â he asks his street-corner audiences. But his voice is dry, he lacks humor and human warmth, and the listeners drift away. Tom, the narrator, is living with European immigrants in Saratoga and working at the five-and-dime. All around him he encounters those who resist Girsdanskyâs message. The immigrants have come to what they think of as a land of opportunity. The petty gamblers of the town have ânothing in their faces but a love of money, and the incorrigible dream of big money.â His younger brother daydreams about travel and making a fortune and lots of women. Even his parents, about to be dispossessed of their home, continue to pursue the ever-receding bonanza. At the end Tom takes the night bus to scratch out a chancy existence in New York City, while Girsdansky continues to preach to the trees and the lampposts.
Communism was not the answer, then, at least not in America. Still, simply surviving in New York remained a trial for Cheever. He might not have made it at all but for the generosity of Yaddo, where he spent most of his time from late 1935 to early 1938. During the long cold winter of â35, he sounded out Elizabeth Ames about the possibility of a summer job running the launch at Triuna, the three-island complex on Lake George owned by the Yaddo foundation. In April he renewed the inquiry. By this time The New Yorker had taken the two stories, and heâd acquired as his first agent Maxim Lieber (a man who specialized in representing writers with liberal sympathies). But he needed time to write, he told Ames, and âwould be glad to work for the chance.â Couldnât a summer job at Yaddo âbe fitted inâ with writing hours?
This query elicited an unsympathetic reply in which Elizabeth Ames advised Cheever to spend more time at some occupation other than writing. He had to learn to support himself, she said. He should adjust to conditions rather than complaining about them. In some exasperation Cheever wrote back that he had held odd jobs all his life, and had supported himself through the winter doing synopses for M-G-M. But as of May 1935 the supply of jobs had run dry. He had put in applications for everything from busboy to copywriter, with no results.
At this Ames relented. Cheever went to Yaddo for the month of August and Lake George for the month of September. In Saratoga he saw a lot of the racing season, piling up background for future stories. On his way south, Cheever stopped in Boston for two days among the
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