Synopses & Reviews
Welcome to Bullet Park, a township in which even the most buttoned-down gentry sometimes manage to terrify themselves simply by looking in the mirror. In these exemplary environs John Cheever traces the fateful intersection of two men: Eliot Nailles, a nice fellow who loves his wife and son to blissful distraction, and Paul Hammer, a bastard named after a common household tool, who, after half a lifetime of drifting, settles down in Bullet Park with one objective—to murder Nailles's son. Here is the lyrical and mordantly funny hymn to the American suburb—and to all the dubious normalcy it represents—delivered with unparalleled artistry and assurance.
Review
"It has the tone of a summing-up and the tension of a vision." New York Times
Synopsis
Eliot Nailles and Paul Hammer meet, presumably by chance, on Sunday at church in Bullet Park. Nailles is open, no secrets. Hammer is, dangerously for him, not what he seems.
The third crucial character, Tony Nailles, is the one who holds the bag. How he got into it and how in the nick of time he appears to get out is the crux of this tale.
Synopsis
From a master American storyteller (TIME), Bullet Park traces the fateful intersection of two men: Eliot Nailles, a nice fellow who loves his wife and son to blissful distraction, and the man who, after half a lifetime of drifting, settles down in Bullet Park with one objective--to murder Nailles's son.
Welcome to Bullet Park, a township in which even the most buttoned-down gentry sometimes manage to terrify themselves simply by looking in the mirror. In these exemplary environs Pulitzer Prize winner John Cheever delivers a lyrical and mordantly funny hymn to the American suburb--and to all the dubious normalcy it represents--written with unparalleled artistry and assurance.
"A magnificent work of fiction.... A novel to pore over, move around in, live with. --The New York Times
Synopsis
A mordantly funny hymn to the American suburb which traces the intersection of two men the innocent Eliot Nailles and his nemesis, Paul Hammer, whose object is to murder his neighbor's son.
About the Author
Cheever is the author of 7 collections of short stories and 5 novels. His first novel won the 1958 National Book Award. In 1965 he received the Howells Medal for Fiction from the National Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 1978 he won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Shortly before his death, he was awarded the National Medal for Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.