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...short stories collected in The Cape Cod Lighter demonstrate O'Hara's perception of the hypocracies and paradoxes of our civilization. In the land of the free, the individual is trapped. Each story broadens our understanding of our lives by reminding us of the myriad restrictive pressures which confine us: sex, society, manners, ambition, obligation, capitalism, habit...
...Hara's fiction does not glorify American life, it satirizes it. The accuracy with which he describes our way of life in The Cape Cod Lighter is matched by the poignancy with which he mocks it. In "The Bucket of Blood" Jay Detweiler runs a small bar, and has an affair with a local prostitute. Finally he ends the romance when she wants to hustle in his joint, even if it means marrying him. "He was sorry to break off with Jenny, and amidst his regret was deep appreciation of the compliment to himself and to her business...
...Collins", the best story in The Cape Cod Lighter, carries this message of brotherhood. Through his friendship with the eminently successful Whit Hofman, Pat Collins builds up a good business. But there is a hitch: Pat's wife loves Whit and seduces him. When their affair ends, Mrs. Collins confesses to her husband, and his world collapses. Not sin, but Pat's loss of his friend brings failure. He loses all faith in himself. As his world crumbles, Pat spends his evenings at a speakeasy where he befriends a lonely elderly millionaire who has spent 35 years writing a life...
...social criticism. Almost certainly they will stick to the familiar American pattern and relax with his books while snuggled in suburban armchairs. For O'Hara's descriptions are so real, his eye and ear so keen, that we can accept the stories at face value and place The Cape Cod Lighter on the coffee table next to The Saturday Evening Post. To recognize the bite and satire on every page would be to challenge the foundations of our entire way of life
...Achilles, inflames them and casts them off. Ann is supposed to be bitchy, but Miss Vogel is too callous to make me believe she could arouse anyone's lust. Peter Gaylord (Peter Hoagland) loves Ann Timmons and wants to take her away from the filth of Cambridge to Cape Cod, where he teaches high school. He stands for the home truths: love over lust, sincerity in place of affectation. But again I don't believe a real Ann Timmons would ever sit with him at the Casa-B, much less leave the Square with him for a quiet life...