'He was a writer before he was breakfast food. He was a writer almost before he was a man.'

Benjamin Cheever, in the introduction to The Journals, advocates an admiration towards his father and the works that allowed his father to write for a living. This statement suggests that Cheever was born to be a writer, and perhaps even his journals, written work that appears not to have intentionally been written for the eyes of the public, demonstrate this. I think if I were to keep a journal, and years and years later in the future make the decision to show it to the world, I would have to be confident that I was doing so at the right time. I think Cheever knew that it was the right time, and whether or not the journals destroyed his readership, or his status, it wouldn't matter, because the journals showed his flaws, his mistakes and misdeeds, but that was who he was. He wanted to reveal the person behind the 'best-seller'. Although it may be the case that the journals express his private thoughts and desires that may not have been expressed before, I would like to propose that his short stories also profoundly display much of what is written in his journals, but simply in a different form, and through different characters with different lives. Therefore I do not believe it is an outrage for Cheever's private works to be shown, because they merely enhance the image I already had of him, although perhaps a harsher, coarser version of his individual. The Journals show the writer before he became a familiar cereal brand. Benjamin Cheever claims 'He seemed to enjoy this status. He must have suspected that the publication of the journals would alter it', implying a calculated decision by Cheever, a decision to surrender to his readers one last piece of his soul.