A Country Husband by John Cheever

Cheever’s unfortunate hero, Francis Weed, a middle-aged suburban businessman commuter and shadow figure of the author himself, suffers the fear of mortality and its companions, lust and turbulent disarray. This classic mid-twentieth-century, middle-American comedy turns on ironies of delusion when Weed shifts between mores and disinhibition. The pathos and laughter are rich, wry, and cruel.