The Wapshot Scandal

Book excerpt: From one of the greatest writers of the 20th century—the darkly comic yet deeply compassionate sequel to the National Book Award–winning novel, The Wapshot Chronicles. Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Cheever shares the further adventures of the Wapshot clan, which for generations has called the New England village of St. Botolphs home. Now, though, the family is cast far and wide: Coverly Wapshot to a secretive missile test site and the formidable Cousin Honora self-exiled in Italy after finding herself on the wrong side of the IRS. Meanwhile, closer to home, Coverly’s brother, Moses, is in dire straits—and worried that he’s being haunted by his father’s ghost. A powerful, sometimes bawdy work of fiction, The Wapshot Scandal is the story of one eccentric—and sometimes tragic—family from one of our greatest writers.