THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLE (307 pp.)John CheeverHarper ($3.50).
This is a brilliantly written first novel, vastly (and sometimes sadly) amusing. So far, Author John Cheever, 44, has been content for a quarter-century to write excellent short stories, most of them about New Yorkers whose fears, despairs and inadequacies assail them in weary moments of truth. But now he has tackled the Wapshots, infinitely bigger game demanding stronger writers' weapons. Cheever has them.
The Wapshots are a once-virile New England family rapidly outliving both their affluence and influence. Like the town of St. Botolphs where they...
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