For the past month or so I've been reading Blake Bailey's biography of John Cheever. Rather I should say up until this morning I've been reading this bio. It's one thing to suffer from depression and quite another thing to read about someone who not only was exceedingly depressed, but was drunk most of the time. I've done the drunk most of the time bit and it wasn't fun reading about the fifths of gin and whiskey Cheever was downing on a daily basis.

So why start? Well, I didn't know he was an alcholic. I did know his children found out after he died that he was proud of the fact he'd never taken it up the ass. Throughout his life he was in constant fear his family would find out he was a bisexual and he thought that fear was one of the reasons he drank.

I suppose I was looking for more than what was there. I certainly didn't expect to find a very depressed man who drank himself into an early death, even though he was a terrific writer.

But after so much depression I had to put the book on the shelf and find something else. I bought the huge Stories of John Cheever. It will replace the bio on the breakfast table. I also picked up this year's Pulitzer winner, Olive Kitteridge, for the nightstand and 180 More: Estraordinary Poems for Every Day for the recliner in my office. I'm trying to find something to lift me up a little more and thought maybe poetry might do it.