When John Cheever died in 1982, he left a legacy of 12 books. Eleven cannot fail to enhance his reputation; one is likely to erode it. The Journals of John Cheever is not scheduled to be published by Knopf until November, but four long excerpts have already appeared in the New Yorker. They have occasioned more chatter and speculation than anything the author published in his lifetime, because they reveal a private face entirely unlike the mask that Cheever contrived for public view.
The gossip is certain to intensify next month, when Treetops (Bantam; $19.95), a book by Cheever's daughter Susan,...
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