The Wapshot Chronicle
Wapshot Chronicle, The,novel by John Cheever, published in 1957.
The quaint, rather run-down old fishing town of St. Botolphs, Mass., is the home of the eccentric Wapshot family. Its senior members are the cousins Leander and Honora. In his old age Leander operates a decrepit ferryboat to a nearby island tourist park (until his second wife, Sarah, renovates it as “The Only Floating Gift Shoppe in New England”), and keeps a laconic journal with reminiscences about his raffish life, until one day he swims out from shore, never to return. The diminutive Honora, possessed of a leonine face, feuds with Leander, whose house and boat she owns, but is fond of his sons, Moses and Coverly. In time both young men leave home to seek their fortunes. Moses, in picaresque style, gets a fine post in a secret government agency until ousted as a security risk because of his liaison with a woman of erratic behavior. He then obtains an executive position in...
[The entire page is 377 words long]
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