Treetops: A Family Memoir (Signed First Edition)

Susan Cheever

ISBN 10: 0553072250 / ISBN 13: 9780553072259

Published by Bantam, 1991

About this Item

NY: Bantam, 1991. First edition. First printing. Hardcover. Brand New, very fine/very fine in all respects. In mylar dust jacket cover. A perfect unread copy. SIGNED AND DATED by author on title page in March 2014. 0.0. Seller Inventory # 341

Bibliographic Details

Title: Treetops: A Family Memoir (Signed First ...

Publisher: Bantam

Publication Date: 1991

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: New

Dust Jacket Condition: New

Signed: Signed by Author(s)

Edition: 1st Edition.

About this title

Synopsis:

The effects of living with a dynasty of talented individuals are explored in a memoir of the American family that gave to the world Thomas Watson, co-inventor of the telephone, Yale Medical School founder Milton Winternitz, and writer John Cheever

Reviews:

This measured, absorbing reminiscence by the daughter of John Cheever and the great-granddaughter of Thomas Watson--who with Alexander Graham Bell devised the telephone--explores what her family's myths "reveal and what they hide." One revelation is the link among the family's famous men--the talent, determination and timing that made successes of Watson, his son-in-law Milton Winternitz, (former dean of Yale Medical School), and John Cheever himself. What the myths do not reveal are the lives of the women--stubborn, gifted and seemingly strong, yet shaped by the men they "happened to end up with." Helen Watson Winternitz graduated from medical school, but never practiced medicine. Elizabeth Kimball Watson is reduced to a line in her husband's autobiography. Mary Winternitz Cheever is the only female in the clan to have prevailed, maintaining both her family and a career as a college teacher. From the cluster of New Hampshire family cottages called Treetops, Cheever ( Home Before Dark ) sheds light on an American dynasty and on the very different lives of its men and women--the former self-directed and linear, the latter social and mosaic-like. The book's shortcoming: Cheever's reflections are less deep than the family would appear to call for. Photos not seen by PW .
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In Home Before Dark ( LJ 11/15/84), the author produced a very readable and often poignant telling of the life story of her father, John Cheever. Unfortunately, here she achieves none of the poignancy and very little of the readability. The story, which is about the "myths" on her mother's side of the family, is a dull, agonizingly slow-paced history of a group of people about whom the reader has a hard time caring. The story revolves, both spiritually and physically, around Treetops, the family's homestead in the New Hampshire hills. The book opens with the life story of the author's great-grandfather and ends with musings by the author on her own life. While some of the anecdotes interjected to liven up the story are amusing, many of them fall flat, giving little relief from the dry, uneven quality of the writing. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/1/90.
- Jessica Grim, Univ. of California at Berkeley Lib.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.