John Cheever - Illness and Death

Illness and Death

In the summer of 1981, a tumor was discovered in Cheever's right kidney and, in late November, he returned to the hospital and learned that the cancer had spread to his femur, pelvis, and bladder. Cheever's last novel, Oh What a Paradise It Seems, was published in March 1982; only a hundred pages long and relatively inferior (as Cheever himself suspected), the book received respectful reviews in part because it was widely known the author was dying of cancer. On April 27, he received the National Medal for Literature at Carnegie Hall, where colleagues were shocked by Cheever's ravaged appearance after months of cancer therapy. "A page of good prose," he declared in his remarks, "remains invincible." As John Updike remembered, "All the literary acolytes assembled there fell quite silent, astonished by such faith." He died on June 18, 1982. The flags in Ossining were lowered to half mast for 10 days after Cheever's death.