In The Wapshot Scandal (1964), Cheever takes aim at contemporary American society by detailing the lives of the surviving Wapshots hurled "into the world of missile stations, thruways, supermarkets, suburbs and questioning young men from the Internal Revenue Service." The focus of the novel concerns Leander's sons Moses and Coverly, each pitted against the forces of modern culture. As generations of Wapshots before them, Moses and Coverly are being tested by the currents of troubled, if not treacherous, waters. Plunged head-first into a world void of the traditional values, beliefs, and customs to which the Wapshots have been bred, Leander's sons struggle not necessarily to succeed but to merely endure.

Although the novel is a continuation of the family saga, Coverly quickly surfaces in The Wapshot Scandal as the central character, whereas Moses decreases in importance. Cousin Honora appears in the novel as more or less an...