Study Questions

• Compare the narrator's references to his father at the beginning of the story and at the end. What insights about the son and the father do the descriptions give? How does the forthcoming language of the beginning convey a different feeling and attitude toward the father from the stunted and withheld ending? For example, what do the expressive "my flesh and blood," "He was a big, good-looking man," or "I was terribly happy to see him again" reveal about the speaker? By contrast, what does the matter-of-fact final sentence "'Goodbye, Daddy,' I said, and I went down the stairs and got my train, and that was the last time I saw my father" reveal about his emotions?
  

• What effect do the father's interactions with waiters at various restaurants have on his image initially created by the son-narrator's anticipation of him?

• The closing phrase is almost a repeat of the beginning phrase of the story. How differently does "and that was the last time I saw my father" sound compared to the beginning? What meaning(s) does it have after the witnessed reunion that it did not have when the story opened? What different moods or tones do the two practically identical phrases carry in their different positions in the narrative?
• What does the father's behavior at the various dining establishments say about the kind of father he is? In what ways does his interaction with the different restaurant clerks speak about his relationship with his son?
• Though the story is told in the first person from the point of view of the son, we do not get his direct quote until the end of the work. Why do you think the son is voiceless throughout most of the story even though this reunion is supposed to be about him and his father, meeting, catching up with each other, getting to know one another?
• Look up the word "tallyho" in a good dictionary like Merriam-Webster, American Heritage, or Oxford. How does its meaning explain the father's usage of the phrase "Master of the hounds" and the restaurant's decor and staff uniform?
  

• John Cheever, "Reunion," The New Yorker (1962)
  

• Deborah Treisman, "Reunions," (2006; Richard Ford reads Cheever's "Reunion" and talks to Treisman about the short story; audio clip, 12:00 min.)
  

• John Dyer, John Cheever: Parody and the Suburban Aesthetic 
• Martin Chilton, "John Cheever: Master of the Short Story," The Telegraph (2012)
• Brad Leithauser, "Cheever's Art of the Devastating Phrase" (2012)
  

• Blake Bailey on John Cheever, The Center for Fiction (2011 lecture by Cheever's biographer; sound not too good)
• Part 1 (14:15 min.)
• Part 2 (9:32 min.)
• Part 3 (9:32 min.)
  

• Celebrating The Stories of John Cheever (2012; video clips of introduction, readings and commentary by three writers; sound not good)
• Part 1 (22:02 min.)
• Part 2 (35:30 min.)
• Part 3 (23:00 min.)
  

• Annette Grant, "John Cheever, The Art of Fiction No. 62," The Paris Review 67 (1976 interview)
• Tom Vitale, "Revisiting John Cheever's Suburban Unrest," NPR (2009; audio clip, 6:22 min.; includes excerpt from biography and from Cheever's journal)
  
• Michiko Kakutani, "John Cheever Is Dead at 70; Novelist Won Pulitzer Prize," The New York Times (1982 obituary)
• Don Swaim, Interview with Susan Cheever, Wired for Books (1984; audio clip, 17:12 min.)
• Rachel Cooke, "The Demons That Drove John Cheever," The Guardian (2009)