John Cheever was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, on May 27, 1912, the second son of Frederick and Mary Liley Cheever. Cheever's home life was difficult; he had a tumultuous relationship with his brother, and his parents were cold and distant. Expelled from Thayer Academy at the age of seventeen, Cheever went to New York City.

Cheever's career started almost immediately upon his arrival in New York. He befriended the director of Yaddo, a writers' colony in upstate New York. At Yaddo, Cheever met e. e. cummings, John Dos Passos, and James Agee. Still seventeen, Cheever sold a story to New Republic, and five years later he was a regular contributor to the New Yorker. His connection to the New Yorker endured for decades, which led some critics to categorize his short stories as being strictly in the New Yorker style and, therefore, a narrow appeal. When he won...