Susan Cheever (born July 31, 1943) is an American author and a prize-winning best-selling writer well known for her memoir, her writing about alcoholism, and her intimate understanding of American history. She is a recipient of the

PEN New England Award The PEN New England Award (previously L. L. Winship/PEN New England Award and Laurence L. & Thomas Winship/PEN New England Award) is awarded annually by PEN New England (today PEN America Boston) to honor a New England author or book with a New Engl ...

Biography

Career

Cheever's most recent book, published in 2015, is ''Drinking in America: Our Secret History''. The book chronicles how alcohol has influenced the history of the United States. Her other books include ''My Name is Bill - Bill Wilson: His Life and the Creation of Alcoholics Anonymous'', a biography of

Alcoholics Anonymous Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is an international mutual aid fellowship of alcoholics dedicated to abstinence-based recovery from alcoholism through its spiritually-inclined Twelve Step program. Following its Twelve Traditions, AA is non-professi ...

cofounder Bill Wilson; ''Home Before Dark'', a memoir about her father, novelist

John Cheever John William Cheever (May 27, 1912 – June 18, 1982) was an American short story writer and novelist. He is sometimes called "the Chekhov of the suburbs". His fiction is mostly set in the Upper East Side of Manhattan; the Westchester suburbs; ...

; ''Treetops: A Memoir''; and five novels:'' Looking for Work, A Handsome Man, The Cage, Doctors and Women'', and ''Elizabeth Cole''. Her essay "Baby Battle," in which she describes immersion in early motherhood and subsequent phases of letting go of her primary identity as a mother, was included in the 2006 anthology ''Mommy Wars'' by

Leslie Morgan Steiner Leslie Morgan Steiner is an artist. Life and career Leslie Anne Morgan was born in Washington, D.C. and is a 1987 graduate of Harvard College and 1992 graduate of the Wharton School of Business. Steiner's first published work was an autobiograph ...

. Her most recent biography, ''E.E. Cummings: A Life'' was reviewed in ''The New York Times'', ''The New Yorker'', and was selected as one of the best books of 2015 by ''The Economist'' ("With boundless new detail gathered through meticulous research, Susan Cheever succeeds where most other biographers have failed....") and ''The San Francisco Chronicle''. Cheever is the author of ''American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work,'' published in December 2006. Cheever was a

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

in 1983. She graduated from

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

in 1965 and studied American Literature at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

. She is also a member of the Corporation of Yaddo and serves on the Author's Guild Council. In addition to working on her books, she teaches in the

Bennington College Bennington College is a private liberal arts college in Bennington, Vermont. Founded in 1932 as a women's college, it became co-educational in 1969. It claims to be the first college to include visual and performing arts as an equal partner in ...

M.F.A. program and at

The New School The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...

. Cheever is the author of ''Desire: Where Sex Meets Addiction'', which was published in 2008. She is working on a book about her father's short stories.

Awards and honors

*1985 L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award, ''Home Before Dark'' *1985

National Book Critics Circle Award The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English".Newsday ''Newsday'' is an American daily newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, although it is also sold throughout the New York metropolitan area. The slogan of the newspaper is "Newsday, Your Eye on LI", and fo ...

columns , Cheever was part of the

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made ...

winning team *2017 PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award, Long-listed for Nonfiction Prize

Personal

Cheever is the daughter of novelist

and poet/professor Mary Cheever. She has two brothers, Benjamin Cheever and the late Federico Cheever. Cheever has been married three times and divorced twice. Cheever married Robert Cowley, the son of

Malcolm Cowley Malcolm Cowley (August 24, 1898 – March 27, 1989) was an American writer, editor, historian, poet, and literary critic. His best known works include his first book of poetry, ''Blue Juniata'' (1929), his lyrical memoir, ''Exile's Return' ...

, in 1967. The couple divorced 8 years later. Cheever's second husband was Calvin Tomkins, II, whom she married in 1981. Cheever and Tomkins have a daughter Sarah. Cheever married her third husband, Warren James Hinckle III, in 1989. Cheever and Hinckle have a son, Warren Hinckle IV, who was born in November 1989.

References

External links

Susan Cheever
''official website''
Column archive
at ''

The Daily Beast ''The Daily Beast'' is an American news website focused on politics, media, and pop culture. It was founded in 2008. It has been characterized as a "high-end tabloid" by Noah Shachtman, the site's editor-in-chief from 2018 to 2021. In a 20 ...

'' * * *
Bad Girls: 26 Writers Misbehave
includes "Alma Mater", an essay by Susan Cheever (2007)
The Other Woman: Twenty-one Wives, Lovers, and Others Talk Openly About Sex, Deception, Love, and Betrayal
includes "In Praise of Married Men," an essay by Susan Cheever (2007) {{DEFAULTSORT:Cheever, Susan 20th-century American novelists American biographers Pembroke College in Brown University alumni Brown University alumni 1943 births Living people The New School faculty American memoirists Place of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American novelists American women novelists 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women writers Novelists from New York (state) 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers American women memoirists American women academics