I don’t have his body of work, but I have much of his character.
I’m reading Blake Bailey’s biography. On page 620, I learn that at Yaddo at age 68, Cheever kept making fun of this surgeon-writer Richard Selzer who Cheever thought was effeminate. At dinner the first night, Cheever said to him conversationally, "Richard, have you ever plagiarized?"
It’s just the sort of brutal thing I would do.
A few days later, Cheever collapses and Selzer saves his life.
Similar things have happened to me where the very people I’ve abused have come to my rescue.
I fear it will happen again.
