SOURCE: Piwinski, David J. “Lisbon and Hackensack in Cheever's ‘The Swimmer.’” Studies in Short Fiction 33, no. 2 (spring 1996): 273-74.

In the following essay, Piwinski investigates Cheever's reference to the cities of Lisbon and Hackensack in the opening passage of “The Swimmer.”

The opening of John Cheever's “The Swimmer” contains the following passage describing the atmospheric conditions on the Sunday that Ned Merrill undertakes his quasi-epic swim through the succession of swimming pools he names the “Lucinda River”: “It was a fine day. In the west there was a massive stand of cumulus cloud so like a city seen from a distance—from the bow of an approaching ship—that it might have had a name. Lisbon. Hackensack” (603). Considering that there are well over two dozen critical analyses explicating nearly every detail of this richly allusive story, it is surprising that only one critic has commented on the possible significance...