Recently, we touched on John Cheever’s influence on Mad Men. This weekend, we’re highlighting one of Cheever’s most-loved stories, “The Swimmer.” The opening lines:
It was one of those midsummer Sundays when everyone sits around saying, “I drank too much last night.” You might have heard it whispered by the parishioners leaving church, heard it from the lips of the priest himself, struggling with his cassock in the vestiarium, heard it from the golf links and the tennis courts, heard it from the wildlife preserve where the leader of the Audubon group was suffering from a terrible hangover. “I drank too much,” said Donald Westerhazy. “We all drank too much,” said Lucinda Merrill. “It must have been the wine,” said Helen Westerhazy. “I drank too much of that claret.”
Keep reading here (pdf), or look for it in The Stories of John Cheever. You can also hear the story from the lips of the author himself, in a 1977 recording, above. Previous SSFSs here.
(Hat tip: Dan Colman)
The Dish 