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Appointment in Samarra; Butterfield 8; Hope of Heaven
Appointment in Samarra Butterfield 8 Hope of Heaven Author:John O'Hara 3 books by O'Hara in a Book Club edition: — 1. Appointment in Samarra, a twentieth-century classic, is the first and most widely read book by the writer Fran Leibowitz called ?the real F. Scott Fitzgerald.? — In December 1930, just before Christmas, the Gibbsville social circuit is electrified with parties and dances, where the music plays late in... more »to the night and the liquor flows freely. At the center of the social elite stand Julian and Caroline English?the envy of friends and strangers alike. But in one rash moment born inside a highball glass, Julian breaks with polite society and begins a rapid descent toward self-destruction. Appointment in Samarra brilliantly captures the personal politics and easy bitterness of small-town life. It is John O?Hara?s crowning achievement, and a lasting testament to the keen social intelligence of a major American novelist.
2. Butterfield 8. A bestseller upon its publication in 1935, BUtterfield 8 was inspired by a news account of the discovery of the body of a beautiful young woman washed up on a Long Island beach. Was it an accident, a murder, a suicide? The circumstances of her death were never resolved, but O?Hara seized upon the tragedy to imagine the woman?s down-and-out life in New York City in the early 1930s.
?O?Hara understood better than any other American writer how class can both reveal and shape character,? Fran Lebowitz writes in her Introduction. With brash honesty and a flair for the unconventional, BUtterfield 8 lays bare the unspoken and often shocking truths that lurked beneath the surface of a society still reeling from the effects of the Great Depression. The result is a masterpiece of American fiction.
3. Hope of Heaven. A charming little doomed romance from the 1930's, John O'hara's prime. A world weary screen-writer of only limited success in his mid-thirties is in love with an idealistic young woman in her twenties who is only passingly interested in him. When her long estranged father comes to LA on business, tragedy ensues. Unrelentingly negative - a gem. Whenever I feel melancholy, I just read it and wallow in Catholic despond at our lot in life.« less