[Cheever's] sympathy for people is consistently strong. [He] shows a steady affection for even the nastiest of his characters—even at their most degraded moments. In the darkest of his stories [collected in The Stories of John Cheever] there shines a light; that light is Cheever's loyalty to human beings—in spite of ourselves….

What makes the affirmation of humanity in Cheever's work so successful is that he never chooses easy subjects for love…. Cheever writes about characters difficult to forgive, but he usually forgives them…. It is all the more astonishing an achievement that he reaches such respect for life in spite of the way the world is. (p. 44)

Since I'm a novelist—whose taste lies solidly with the novel—I must add that this awesome collection of craft and feeling reads like a novel. There is not only the wonder of finishing one good story after...