John Cheever's father has no money to attend the party. John Cheever is a character in the novel Reunion. In the book, John Cheever's father was a leather shoes dealer, and his family was very rich when he was a child. In the 1930 s, the American economy was in a great recession, and my father was almost permanently unemployed and began to drink alcohol. So at John Cheever's party, his father had no money.