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- The Five-Forty-Eight (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
- The Five-Forty-Eight (Magill Book Reviews)
See Also
- Theory of Short Fiction (Critical Survey of Short Fiction, Second Revised Edition)
- John Cheever (Cyclopedia of World Authors, Fourth Revised Edition)
- John Cheever (Identities & Issues in Literature)
- John Cheever (The Sixties in America)
- John Cheever (Critical Survey of Long Fiction, Fourth Edition)
- John Cheever (Critical Survey of Short Fiction, Second Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- First Published: 1954
- Type of Plot: Psychological
- Time of Work: The 1950’s
- Setting: New York City and its suburbs
- Characters: Blake, Miss Dent
- Genres: Psychological fiction, Short fiction
- Subjects: Sexism, Sex or sexuality, Mental illness, Feminism, Trains, Business or business people, Suburban life, Secretaries
- Locales: United States, North America, New York, New York
The Story
Among the more successful of John Cheever’s urban tales, extending into suburbia, “The Five-Forty-Eight” recounts the brief but harrowing ordeal of a selfish, thoughtless male executive whose recent past comes back to haunt him in the person of a deeply disturbed young woman lately employed—and dismissed—as his secretary.
When Blake first spots the young woman apparently waiting for him to emerge from his office building at the end of the day, he readily recalls her face but not her name. Only gradually does he come to suspect that she might...
(The entire page is 1465 words.)
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