Meet the Wapshots of St Botolphs. There is Captain Leander Wapshot, venerable sea-dog and would-be suicide; his licentious older son, Moses; and Moses" adoring and errant younger brother, Coverly. Tragic and funny, ribald and splendidly picaresque, and partly based on Cheever"s adolescence in New England, "The Wapshot Chronicle" is a family narrative in the finest traditions of Trollope, Dickens, and Henry James.