What would you do if your radio told you everyone’s private secrets?
SHORT STORY REVIEW JOHN CHEEVER THE ENORMOUS RADIO 1957
Spoiler alerts
Though sometimes included in horror story collections, this is really a fantasy or even a science fiction work.
It concerns an ordinary middle class, middle-aged Middle American couple that enjoy nothing more than listening to classical music broadcasts on their old radio set at home.
When the radio breaks beyond starting up again with a thump in the right place, the couple buy a new state of the art radio. At first it seems satisfactory, but quickly begins to pick up on local background noise, so the couple hear snatches of conversation from their neighbours and people in the streets. Messing with the frequencies gives them different people, as if thery have planted bugs in the various apartments and even in passing cars.
The lady of the house becomes both upset by the sorrows she hears and obsessed with hearing more, until her husband gets the radio fixed. The radio now plays normally, but the couple worry if it might now be broadcasting their own every word for others to hear, especially when the husband refers to her having had an abortion.
We never find out if the radio is transmitting like this – Cheever ends with their fear of their secrets and sorrows somehow leaking out.
A thoughtful allegory, similar in tone to the stories of Ray Bradbury.