The Stories of John Cheever is a 1978 short story collection by American author John Cheever. It contains some of his most famous stories, including "The Enormous Radio", "Goodbye, My Brother", "The Country Husband", "The Five-Forty-Eight" and "The Swimmer". It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1979 and its first paperback edition won a 1981 National Book Award.

Stories

• "Goodbye, My Brother" • "The Common Day" • "The Enormous Radio" • "O City of Broken Dreams" • "The Hartleys" • "The Sutton Place Story" • "The Summer Farmer" • "Torch Song" • "The Pot of Gold" • "Clancy in the Tower of Babel" • "Christmas is a Sad Season for the Poor" • "The Season of Divorce" • "The Chaste Clarissa" • "The Cure" • "The Superintendent" • "The Children" • "The Sorrows of Gin" • "O Youth and Beauty!" • "The Day the Pig Fell Into the Well" • "The Five-Forty-Eight" • "Just One More Time" • "The Housebreaker of Shady Hill" • "The Bus to St. James's" • "The Worm in the Apple" • "The Trouble of Marcie Flint" • "The Bella Lingua" • "The Wrysons" • "The Country Husband" • "The Duchess" • "The Scarlet Moving Van" • "Just Tell Me Who It Was" • "Brimmer" • "The Golden Age" • "The Lowboy" • "The Music Teacher" • "A Woman Without a Country" • "The Death of Justina" • "Clementina" • "Boy in Rome" • "A Miscellany of Characters That Will Not Appear" • "The Chimera" • "The Seaside Houses" • "The Angel of the Bridge" • "The Brigadier and the Golf Widow" • "A Vision of the World" • "Reunion" • "An Educated American Woman" • "Metamorphoses" • "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin" • "Montraldo" • "The Ocean" • "Marito in Città" • "The Geometry of Love" • "The Swimmer" • "The World of Apples" • "Another Story" • "Percy" • "The Fourth Alarm" • "Artemis, the Honest Well Digger" • "Three Stories" • "The Jewels of the Cabots"

The John Cheever Audio Collection

In 2004, Caedmon released a recorded compilation of selected stories from The Stories of John Cheever, each read either by Cheever, George Plimpton, or a professional actor. Benjamin Cheever reads the introduction written by his father, and the full track list of stories is as follows: • "The Enormous Radio" read by Meryl Streep • "The Five-Forty-Eight" read by Edward Herrmann • "O City of Broken Dreams" read by Blythe Danner • "Christmas is a Sad Season for the Poor" read by George Plimpton • "The Season of Divorce" read by Edward Herrmann • "The Brigadier and the Golf Widow" read by Peter Gallagher • "The Sorrows of Gin" read by Meryl Streep • "O Youth and Beauty!" read by Peter Gallagher • "The Chaste Clarissa" read by Blythe Danner • "The Jewels of the Cabots" read by George Plimpton • "The Death of Justina" read by John Cheever • "The Swimmer" read by John Cheever Reception to the collection was positive. Publishers Weekly called the readers a "first-class lineup of narrators" and stated that "Cheever's archived readings that steal the show. His performance of "The Swimmer," in particular, boldly displays his contempt for the country-club set, while still evoking readers' sympathy for the hapless main character. The inclusion of [his] readings makes for a deeply personal, resonant finale to a truly superb production."