Books
April, 1982
John Cheever has written a perfect little book. Oh What a Paradise It Seems (Knopf) does in 100 pages what many longer works are unable to do: It elegantly and powerfully moves us. Sears is an old man who loves to skate and saves the pond where he does it from polluters. He has an affair with a much younger woman, is jilted and surprises himself by taking up briefly with her elevator man. We also learn about some other people who live around the pond, whose stories form a kind of muffler around...
