Susan Cheever discusses her book, Home Before Dark, which is a memoire, and includes many stories about her father, John Cheever. Don was brought to tears after reading the book, and asks Susan why she wrote such a deep book, in which she replies writing Home Before Dark helped her get through her father's sickness. In researching for the book she went through her father's journals, and learned many things she never knew about her father.

Listen to the Susan Cheever interview with Don Swaim, November 20, 1984
(17 min. 12 sec.)

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Susan Cheever discusses her current work on a novel which is a profile of a doctor; the idea for the book came to her after dealing with many doctors during her father's sickness. She also discusses reading the diaries her father kept, how she felt after reading them, the controversies surounding her book Home Before Dark, and a project she and her siblings are working on to publishing her father's journals. She also talks about her approach and process when writing a novel as well as what she does when not writing.

Listen to the Susan Cheever interview with Don Swaim, November 6, 1985
(29 min. 23 sec.)

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Redistribution is not permitted.

In this 1991 interview with Don Swaim, Susan Cheever talks about her great-grandfather, Thomas Watson, who was Alexander Graham Bell's assistant. She reveals the myth about the invention of the telephone and the famous quotation that was never actually said. She talks about her book, Treetops: A Family Memoir and how she once wanted to call the book, Three Great Men and the Women They Destroyed. She also talks extensively about her mother's stormy relationship with her father, John Cheever, the famous short story writer.

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For many years most of the best writers of the English language found their way to Don Swaim's CBS Radio studio in New York. Wired for Books is proud to webcast these interviews in RealAudio.