John O'Hara

John Henry O'Hara (31 January 1905 – 11 April, 1970) was an American writer

Life and work

O'Hara was the son of a prosperous doctor but his father died when O'Hara was nineteen, leaving him unable to afford college. By all accounts, this disappointment affected O'Hara deeply for the rest of his life and served to hone the keen sense of social awareness that characterizes his work. He worked as a reporter for various newspapers before moving to New York City, where he began to write short stories for magazines. In his early days he was also a film critic, a radio commentator, and a press agent; later, with his reputation established, he became a newspaper columnist. O'Hara received much critical acclaim for his short stories, more than 200 of which, beginning in 1928, appeared in The New Yorker. Many of these stories (and his later novels) were set in Gibbsville, Pennsylvania, a fictionalized version of Pottsville, a small city in the coal region of the United States.

Related Topics:
New York City - The New Yorker - Gibbsville - Pennsylvania - Pottsville - Coal region

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In 1934 O'Hara published his first novel, Appointment in Samarra, which was acclaimed on publication. This is the O'Hara novel that is most consistently praised by critics. Of it, Ernest Hemingway wrote: "If you want to read a book by a man who knows exactly what he is writing about and has written it marvelously well, read Appointment in Samarra." On the other hand, writing in the Atlantic Monthly in March, 2000, critic Benjamin Schwarz and writer Christina Schwarz claimed: "So widespread is the literary world's scorn for John O'Hara that the inclusion...of Appointment in Samarra on the Modern Library's list of the 100 best novels of the twentieth century was used to ridicule the entire project."

Related Topics:
Appointment in Samarra - Ernest Hemingway - Atlantic Monthly - 2000

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Harold Bloom included Appointment in Samarra as one of the works in the Western canon.

Related Topics:
Harold Bloom - Appointment in Samarra - Western canon

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This successful work was followed by several other novels such as Butterfield 8. During World War II O'Hara was a correspondent in the Pacific theatre. After the war, he wrote screenplays and more novels including Ten North Frederick, for which he won the 1955 National Book Award. But his books became increasingly wordy and his critical reputation suffered, although his shorter work was still esteemed. He was also attacked by some for his frank treatment of sexuality, which approached the boundaries of what was then permissible; Butterfield 8 was considered particularly shocking, and was banned in Australia until 1963.

Related Topics:
Butterfield 8 - World War II - Ten North Frederick - National Book Award - His frank treatment of sexuality

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Despite his obvious writing skill, most of O'Hara's longer work was not highly esteemed by the literary establishment. Some of this may have been due to extra-literary factors, such as his social climbing, his vigorous self-promotion, and his politically conservative newspaper columns. Martin Kich of Wright State University states that "O'Hara's achievements have been so long and thoroughly denigrated that he is now typically considered a novelist of the second or even the third rank."

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Critical disdain for O'Hara -- like that the literary establishment expressed towards his contemporary John Phillips Marquand -- had less to do with his merits as a writer than with the political tilt of academic and journalistic critics. Both wrote about a subject that made Americans generally profoundly uncomfortable: privilege and inequality. Having clawed their way into a sort of respectability, the critics resented and scorned authors willing to explore the institutions from which they themselves derived their fragile sense of social superiority.

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His 1939 epistolary novel, Pal Joey, led to the notable musical of the same name, with libretto by O'Hara and songs by Rodgers and Hart. The 1940 production starred Gene Kelly and Vivienne Segal; it was successfully revived in 1952, and became a 1957 motion picture starring Frank Sinatra and Rita Hayworth.

Related Topics:
1939 - Epistolary novel - Pal Joey - Rodgers and Hart - 1940 - Gene Kelly - Vivienne Segal - 1952 - 1957 - Frank Sinatra - Rita Hayworth

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Brendan Gill, who worked with him at The New Yorker, ranks him as "among the greatest short-story writers in English, or in any other language" and credits him with helping "to invent what the world came to call the New Yorker short story."

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"Oh," writes Gill, "but John O'Hara was a difficult man! Indeed, there are those who would describe him as impossible, and they would have their reasons." Gill indicates that O'Hara was nearly obsessed with a sense of social inferiority due to not having attended college. "People used to make fun of the fact that O'Hara wanted so desperately to have gone to Yale, but it was never a joke to O'Hara. It seemed... that there wasn't anything he didn't know about in regard to college and prep-school matters." Of O'Hara, Hemingway once said, cruelly, "Someone should take up a collection to send John O'Hara to Yale." O'Hara also yearned for an honorary degree from Yale. According to Gill, Yale was unwilling to award the honor because O'Hara "asked for it."

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According to biographer Frank MacShane, O'Hara thought that Hemingway's death made him the leading candidate for the Nobel prize for literature. He wrote to his daughter "I really think I will get it," and "I want the Nobel prize... so bad I can taste it." MacShane says that T. S. Eliot told O'Hara that he had, in fact, been nominated twice. When Steinbeck won the prize in 1962, O'Hara wired "Congratulations. I can think of only one other author I'd rather see get it."

Related Topics:
Hemingway - T. S. Eliot - Steinbeck - 1962

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