Word: samarra
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Though he has neither Lardner's indescribable humor nor Hemingway's Paris-found sense of style, John O'Hara ranks with them as a first-class, far from phoney reporter. Appointment in Samarra, his first and best novel, was good enough and true enough to make anything he wrote thereafter worth reading. Probably most worth reading are his acid short stories...
John O'Hara's first two novels impressed critics for two reasons. They revealed his command of native dialect and his willingness to enter into the minds of recognizable U. S. types to see what made them tick. Thus, in Appointment in Samarra, he explored the consciousness of a Pennsylvania Cadillac dealer who committed suicide; in Butter field 8, the crossed-up life of a New York speakeasy girl who had better reasons for letting herself...
Married. Novelist John O'Hara (Appointment in Samarra, Butter field 8); and Belle Wylie, Manhattan socialite; in Elkton...
...doing so. Last week the publication of John O'Hara's second novel made him the strongest candidate among U. S. novelists for the part that Fitzgerald has vacated by growing out of the ranks of the young. A more impressive and ambitious volume than Appointment in Samarra, his first novel, Butter field 8 suggests that John O'Hara is well on his way to becoming the voice of the hangover generation that awakened in the grey dawn of 1930. Writing principally of speakeasy, country-club, fairly well-to-do crowds similar to those Fitzgerald wrote about...
...qualifying himself for hard-boiled champion of the year. As straight a reporter of U. S. dialect as the late great Ring Lardner and straighter than Hemingway, he writes without bitterness, without pity. The effect is unpleasant but cruelly true to U. S. life. His first novel, Appointment in Samarra (TIME, Aug. 20), offended many a reader, excited many a critic. This collection of sketches and short stories will raise the same echo...