As with the other book by John Cheever that I read, I only got this book to read one story in it, "the season of divorce." If you look at my review of his other collection of short stories, you'll see what I think about John Cheever and his writing.
It seems to me that John Cheever had a strange life, and strange friends. His ideas of a home life, and a married life, with children, seem weird. It could be the difference between class, culture, and the time that this was written, but I think it's more than that.
As to the "season of divorce," it's about a married couple who are struggling a bit, because the husband doesn't make much money.
They have a strange routine with their children, where the children eat dinner early and are bathed and go to bed, and then the husband and wife have dinner at the dining table with candles and china. Though they eat dishes such as corned beef hash.
One of their neighbors is a doctor who is married to a woman about 15 years older than him. The doctor falls in love with the protagonist's wife. And the wife, in a session in the middle of the night, confesses to her husband how unhappy she is, and why shouldn't she go away? But I guess they end up staying together. Strange.
By the way, John Cheever was bisexual, but hated that aspect of himself, so he was probably very unhappy. ( )

I am abandoning this at page 386 (out of over 1000 pgs). These short stories are well-written but I am finding the people and life described are depressing me. ( )