John O'Hara

For other people named John O'Hara, seeJohn O'Hara (disambiguation).

John Henry O'Hara(January 31, 1905 – April 11, 1970) was an American writer. He was one of America's most prolific writers ofshort stories,credited with helping to inventThe New Yorkermagazine short story style.He became a best-selling novelist before the age of 30 withAppointment in SamarraandBUtterfield 8.While O'Hara's legacy as a writer is debated, his work was praised by such contemporaries asErnest HemingwayandF. Scott Fitzgerald,and his champions rank him highly among the major under-appreciated American writers of the 20th century.Few college students educated after O'Hara's death in 1970 have discovered him, chiefly because he refused to allow his work to be reprinted in anthologies used to teach literature at the college level.

John O'Hara
O'Hara in 1945
Born	(1905-01-31)January 31, 1905 Pottsville, Pennsylvania,U.S.
Died	April 11, 1970(1970-04-11)(aged 65) Princeton, New Jersey,U.S.
Genre	Short story,drama,essay
Notable works	Appointment in Samarra BUtterfield 8

"O’Hara may not have been the best story writer of the twentieth century, but he is the most addictive," wroteLorin Stein,then editor-in-chief ofThe Paris Review,in a 2013 appreciation of O'Hara's work. Stein added, "You can binge on his collections the way some people binge onMad Men,and for some of the same reasons. On the topics of class, sex, and alcohol—that is, the topics that mattered to him—his novels amount to a secret history of American life. "

O'Hara achieved substantial commercial success in the years after World War II, when his fiction repeatedly appeared inPublishers Weekly'sannual list of the top ten best-selling fiction works in the United States. These best sellers includedA Rage to Live(1949),Ten North Frederick(1955),From the Terrace(1959),Ourselves to Know(1960),Sermons and Soda Water(1960) andElizabeth Appleton(1963).Five of his works were adapted into popular films in the 1950s and 1960s.

Despite the popularity of these books, O'Hara accumulated detractors due to his outsized and easily bruised ego, alcoholic irascibility, long-held resentments and politically conservative views that were unfashionable in literary circles in the 1960s.After O'Hara's death,John Updike,an admirer of O'Hara's writing, said that the prolific author "out-produced our capacity for appreciation; maybe now we can settle down and marvel at him all over again."

Early life and education

O'Hara was born inPottsville, Pennsylvania,to an affluentIrish Americanfamily. Though his family lived among the gentry of eastern Pennsylvania during his childhood, O'Hara'sIrish Catholicbackground gave him the perspective of an outsider to eliteWASPsociety, a theme he wrote of again and again. He attended thesecondary schoolNiagara Prep inLewiston, New York,where he was named Class Poet for Class of 1924.His father died about that time, leaving him unable to affordYale,the college of his dreams, and he fell overnight from the privileged life of a well-heeled doctor's family, including club memberships, riding and dance lessons, fancy cars in the barn, and domestic servants in the house. By all accounts, this social fall afflicted O'Hara with status anxiety for the rest of his life, honing the cutting social class awareness that characterizes his work.

Brendan Gill,who worked with O'Hara atThe New Yorker,claimed that O'Hara was nearly obsessed with a sense of social inferiority due to not having attended Yale. "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 it in regard to college and prep-school matters."Hemingway once said someone should "start a bloody fund to send up a collection to send John O'Hara to Yale."As his literary acclaim grew, O'Hara yearned for an honorary degree from Yale, but never received it. According to Gill, the college was unwilling to award the honor precisely because O'Hara had obstreperously "asked for it."

Career and reputation

Initially, O'Hara worked as a reporter for various newspapers. Moving to New York City, he began to write short stories for magazines. During the early part of his career, he was also a film critic, a radio commentator and a press agent. In 1934, O'Hara published his first novel,Appointment in Samarra.Endorsing the novel,Ernest Hemingwaywrote: "If you want to read a book by a man who knows exactly what he is writing about and has written it marvelously well, readAppointment in Samarra."O'Hara followedSamarrawithBUtterfield 8,hisroman à clefbased upon the tragic, short life of flapperStarr Faithfull,whose mysterious death in 1931 became a tabloid sensation. Over four decades, O'Hara published novels, novellas, plays, screenplays and more than 400 short stories, the majority of them inThe New Yorker.

DuringWorld War II,he was a correspondent in thePacific theater.After the war, he wrote screenplays and more novels, includingTen North Frederick,for which he won the 1956National Book AwardandFrom the Terrace(1958), which he considered his "greatest achievement as a novelist."Late in life, with his reputation established, he became a newspaper columnist. In his last decade, O'Hara created "a body of work of magnificent dimensions," wrote the novelistGeorge V. Higgins,whose own trademark dialogue was influenced heavily by O'Hara's style. "Between 1960 and 1968," Higgins noted, O'Hara "published six novels, seven collections of short fiction, and some 137 terse and extended stories that all by themselves would supply credentials for a towering reputation in the world of perfect justice that he never did quite find."

First edition cover ofAppointment in Samarra

Many of O'Hara's stories (and his later novels written in the 1950s) are set in Gibbsville, Pennsylvania, a barely fictionalized version of his home town of Pottsville, a small city in theanthracite regionof the northeastern United States. He named Gibbsville for his friend and frequent editor atThe New YorkerWolcott Gibbs.Most of his other stories were set in New York or Hollywood.

O'Hara's short stories earned him his highest critical acclaim. He contributed more of them toThe New Yorkerthan any other writer.He complained that his numerous short stories took his time away from writing novels. "I had an apparently inexhaustible urge to express an unlimited supply of short story ideas. No writing has ever come more easily to me," he claimed.In theLibrary of America's collection of 60 of O'Hara's best stories, editor Charles McGrath praises them for their "sketchlike lightness and brevity... in which nothing necessarily 'happens' in the old-fashioned sense, but in which some crucial loss or discovery is revealed just by implication... a sense of speed and economy is just what makes the best of these stories so thrilling."Gill, who worked with O'Hara atThe New Yorker,ranks him "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 callThe New Yorkershort story. "In the foreword to a collection published four years before his death, O'Hara declared," No one writes them any better than I do. "Two more volumes of his stories were published soon after his death.

Despite his success as a best-selling author, most of O'Hara's longer work is not held in as high regard by the literary establishment. CriticBenjamin Schwarzand writer Christina Schwarz claimed: "So widespread is the literary world's scorn for John O'Hara that the inclusion ofAppointment in Samarraon theModern Library's list of the 100 best English-language novels of the twentieth century was used to ridicule the entire project. "Some of O'Hara's novels and stories are tied off with clumsy, abrupt endings. Some of the harsh literary criticism is attributed to personal dislike of O'Hara's abrasive ego and arrogant manner, his vigorous self-promotion, his obsession with his social status, and the politically conservative columns he wrote late in his career. Early and mid-20th century critics also disparaged his novels for their blunt and non-judgmental depictions of loose women and homosexuals, but critics writing after thesexual revolutionsaw in O'Hara a pioneer in showing female sexuality in frank, realistic ways. His most biting critics regard his novels as shallow and overly concerned with sexual desire, drinking and surface details at the expense of deeper meaning. Many of his leading characters are alcoholics who live as emotional zombies, anesthetized by drinking to the agony of the human heart in conflict with itself. As his contemporaryWilliam Faulknersaid of such writers in hisNobel Prizeaddress of 1949, "He writes not of the heart but of the glands."

In 1949, O'Hara leftThe New Yorkerbitterly, after it published a withering review of O'Hara's long novelA Rage to Liveby his colleagueBrendan Gill.Gill disparaged O'Hara's book as "a formula family novel", one of those turned out by "writers of the third and fourth magnitude in such disheartening abundance" and declared it "a catastrophe" by an author who "plainly intended to write nothing less than a great American novel." Literary critics called Gill's review a "savage attack" and a "cruel hatchet job" on one ofThe New Yorker's most popular writers."During the preceding two decades O'Hara had beenThe New Yorker's most prolific contributor of stories "(no fewer than 197 by one count).After the magazine published Gill's review, O'Hara quit writing forThe New Yorkerfor more than a decade, and when readers complained to Gill for driving O'Hara away, Gill deflected blame onto anotherNew Yorkercontributor,James Thurber,for stirring up animosity. O'Hara would not resume writing forThe New Yorkeruntil the 1960s, upon the arrival of a new editor who sought out O'Hara with an olive branch. Nearly 50 years after the scandalous review, at a forum on O'Hara's legacy held in 1996, Gill stood up in the audience to explain his attack on O'Hara, pleading that "I had to tell the truth about the novel."

According to biographer Frank MacShane, O'Hara thought that Hemingway's death made O'Hara the leading candidate for theNobel Prize in Literature.O'Hara 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 thatT.S. Eliottold O'Hara that he had, in fact, been nominated twice. WhenJohn Steinbeckwon the prize in 1962, O'Hara wired, "Congratulations, I can think of only one other author I'd rather see get it." In a letter to Steinbeck two years before that, O'Hara placed himself with Steinbeck in the pantheon of great 20th century American writers, Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Faulkner, singling out Faulkner among them as "the one, the genius."

O'Hara's legacy has many literary admirers, including authors such asJohn Updike,Shelby Foote,Joan DidionandFran Lebowitz.Charles McGrath,a former fiction editor ofThe New Yorkerand former editor ofThe New York Times Book Review,has called O'Hara "one of the great listeners of American fiction, able to write dialogue that sounded the way people really talk, and he also learned the eavesdropper's secret—how often people leave unsaid what is really on their minds.".O'Hara said he learned from readingRing Lardner"that if you wrote down speech as it is spoken truly, you produce true characters," and added, "Sometimes I almost feel that I ought to apologize for having the ability to write good dialogue, and yet it's the attribute most lacking in American writers and almost totally lacking in the British."

Death

O'Hara died fromcardiovascular diseasein Princeton, New Jersey, and is interred in thePrinceton Cemetery.A comment he made about himself and which was chosen by his wife for hisepitaphreads: "Better than anyone else, he told the truth about his time. He was a professional. He wrote honestly and well."Of this, Gill commented: "From the far side of the grave, he remains self-defensive and overbearing. Better than anyone else? Not merely better than any other writer of fiction but better than any dramatist, any poet, any biographer, any historian? It is an astonishing claim."

After his death, O'Hara's study and its contents were reconstructed in 1974 for display atPennsylvania State University,where his papers are held. His childhood home, theJohn O'Hara Housein Pottsville, was added to theNational Register of Historic Placesin 1978.

Adaptations

Poster for the filmBUtterfield 8

O'Hara'sepistolary novelPal Joey(1940) led to the successful Broadway musical, withlibrettoby O'Hara and songs byRodgers and Hart.In 1957,Pal Joeywas made into a musical film starring Rita Hayworth, Frank Sinatra, Kim Novak, and Barbara Nichols.

From the Terraceis a 1960 film adapted from O'Hara's 1958 novel. The film starredPaul Newmanas disenchanted Alfred Eaton, son of a wealthy but indifferent father and alcoholic mother as well asJoanne Woodwardas his socially ambitious, self-pitying and unfaithful wife Mary St. John.

Also in 1960, O'Hara's best-selling 1935 novelBUtterfield 8was released as afilm with the same name.Elizabeth Taylorwon theAcademy Award for Best Actressfor her portrayal of Gloria Wandrous. Of the film version, Taylor famously said, "I think it stinks."

Ten North Frederickis a 1958 film based on O'Hara's 1955 novel.Gary Cooperstarred as Joe Chapin, withDiane Varsi,Ray Stricklyn, Suzy Parker, andGeraldine Fitzgeraldin supporting roles. O'Hara called Cooper's performance "sensitive, understanding and true."

A Rage to Liveis a 1965 film directed by Walter Grauman and starringSuzanne Pleshetteas Grace Caldwell Tate, a well-mannered, upper-crust beauty whose passions wreak havoc on her social circle. The screenplay by John T. Kelley is based on O'Hara's best-selling 1949 novel.

O'Hara's short stories about Gibbsville were used as the basis for the 1975 NBC television movieJohn O'Hara's Gibbsville(also known asThe Turning Point of Jim Malloy) and for the short-lived 1976 NBC dramatic television seriesGibbsville.

In 1987, an adaptation of O'Hara's 1966 story "Natica Jackson," about a film actress in 1930s Hollywood, was produced for thePBSanthology seriesGreat Performances.It was directed byPaul Bogartand starredMichelle Pfeifferin the title role.

The television period drama seriesMad Men,onAMCfrom 2007 to 2015, generated renewed popular interest in O'Hara's work, which dealt with similar themes of mid-20th century American society.

Columns

In the early 1950s, O'Hara wrote a weekly book column, "Sweet and Sour" for theTrenton Times-Advertiserand a biweekly column, "Appointment with O'Hara", forCollier'smagazine. MacShane calls them "garrulous and outspoken" and says neither "added much of importance to O'Hara's work". Biographer Shelden Grebstein says that O'Hara in these columns was "simultaneously embarrassing and infuriating in his vaingloriousness, vindictiveness, and general bellicosity." Biographer Geoffrey Woolf says these earlier columns anticipated "his disastrous 'My Turn' inNewsday,which endured fifty-three weeks... beginning in late 1964... of his dismissive and contemptuous worst ".

His firstNewsdaycolumn opened with the line, "Let's get off to a really bad start." His second complained, "the same hysteria that afflicted the Prohibitionists is now evident among the anti-cigarettists." His third column nominally supported theRepublican PartynomineeBarry Goldwaterfor U.S. president by identifying his cause with fans of the corny accordionist and band leaderLawrence Welk."I think it's time the Lawrence Welk people had their say," wrote O'Hara. "TheLester LaninandDizzy Gillespiepeople have been on too long. When the country is in trouble, like war kind of trouble, man, it is the Lawrence Welk people who can be depended upon, all the way. "In his fifth column, he argued thatMartin Luther King Jr.should not have received the Nobel Peace Prize.

The syndicated column was not a success, published by a continuously decreasing number of newspapers, and did not endear him to the politically liberal New York literary establishment.

Several of his columns demonstrate his knowledge of trivia about and yearning for association withIvy Leaguecolleges. As he noted, "Through the years I have acquired a vast amount of information about colleges and universities." The May 8, 1965, column takes as its ostensible topic the fact that Yale owns stock inAmerican Broadcasting Companyand thus is a beneficiary of the television programPeyton Place.O'Hara writes:

[I]n that Yale Blue Heaven Up Above, whereWilliam Lyon PhelpsandHenry Seidel Canbymay meet every afternoon for tea, there must be some embarrassment. Assuming that Harvard men also go to heaven (Princetonmen go back toOld Nassau), I fancy that they are having a little fun with Dr. Phelps and Dr. Canby on the subject of Peyton Place.

Later, he notes thatJames Gould Cozzensis a "genuine Harvard alumnus" and speculates that Harvard should broker a television serialization of a Cozzens novel:

But Cozzens makes his home inWilliamstown, Mass.,and they have a college there. WhenSinclair Lewislived in Williamstown the college ignored him, possibly because Lewis was a Yale man, although I am only guessing on that. I live in Princeton, N. J. and am not a Yale man, but official Princeton University has ignored me as Williams did Lewis.

His September 4, 1965, column deals entirely with his failure to have received any honorary degrees, going into detail about three honorary degrees he was actually offered but, for various reasons, did not accept. In the column, he lists the awards he has received:

In a long and (I believe) useful literary career I have received five major honors. Not to be bashful about it, they are: the National Book Award; membership in theNational Institute of Arts and Letters;theGold Medal of the Academy of Arts and Letters;theCritics Circle Award;and theDonaldson award.You will note that among them is no recognition by the institutions of higher learning.

He complains that the colleges write him "highly complimentary" letters asking him to perform "chores" such as officiating aswriter-in-residence,judging literary contests, and give lectures, yet do not give him degree citations. "The five major distinctions," he notes, "were awarded me by other writers, not by [academia]."

The column closes with the comment:

If Yale had given me a degree, I could have joined theYale Club,where the food is pretty good, the library is ample and restful, the location convenient, and I could go there when I felt like it without sponging off friends. They also have a nice-looking necktie.

Bibliography

Novels

• Appointment in Samarra(1934)
• BUtterfield 8(1935)
• Hope of Heaven(1938)
• Pal Joey(1940)
• A Rage to Live(1949)
• The Farmers Hotel(1951) — adapted from O'Hara's original play
• Ten North Frederick(1955) — winner of theNational Book Award for Fiction
• A Family Party(1956)
• From the Terrace(1958)
• Ourselves to Know(1960)
• The Big Laugh(1962)
• Elizabeth Appleton(1963)
• The Lockwood Concern(1965)
• The Instrument(1967)
• Lovey Childs: A Philadelphian's Story(1969)
• The Ewings(1970)
• The Second Ewings(1972)

Short story collections

• The Doctor’s Son and Other Stories(1935)
• Files on Parade(1939)
• Pipe Night(1945)
• Hellbox(1947)
• Sermons and Soda Water: A Trilogy of Three Novellas(1960)
• Assembly(1961)
• The Cape Cod Lighter(1962)
• The Hat on the Bed(1963)
• The Horse Knows the Way(1964)
• Waiting for Winter(1966)
• And Other Stories(1968)
• The Time Element and Other Stories(1972)
• Good Samaritan and Other Stories(1974)
• Gibbsville, PA(Carroll & Graf, 1992,ISBN0-88184-899-9)

Screenplays

• He Married His Wife(1940)
• Moontide(1942)

Plays

• Five Plays(1961)

(The Farmers Hotel, The Searching Sun, The Champagne Pool, Veronique, The Way It Was)

• Two by O'Hara(1979)

(The Man Who Could Not Lose[screen treatment] andFar from Heaven[play])

Nonfiction

• Sweet and Sour(1954) Assorted columns on books and authors
• My Turn(1966). Fifty-three weekly columns written forNewsday
• Letters(1978).

Other

BUtterfield 8,Pal JoeyandThe Doctor's Son and Other Storieswere published asArmed Services Editionsduring WWII.

Further reading

• Gill, Brendan.Here at The New Yorker.Random House, 1975. Da Capo Press, 1997,ISBN0-306-80810-2.(O'Hara desperately wanting to attend Yale, p. 117. Failure to get honorary Yale degree, p. 268.)
• O'Hara, John (1966),My Turn: Fifty-three Pieces by John O'Hara(collected newspaper columns), Random House.
• Farr, Finis (1973):O'Hara: A Biography.Boston: Little Brown.
• Bruccoli, Matthew J.(1975):The O'Hara Concern: A Biography of John O'Hara.New York: Random House.
• MacShane, Frank (1980):The Life of John O'Hara.New York: Dutton.
• Woolf, Geoffrey (2003):The Art of Burning Bridges: A Life of John O'Hara.New York: Knopf.
• The Western Canon:Appointment in Samarraincluded byHarold Bloom.

External links

• Philly Burbs O'Hara's lost papers and reward
• John O'Hara – (1905–1970)
• O'Hara Study at Penn State
• Guide to the John O'Hara Papers, 1923–1991
• Guide to the Random House Files of John O'Hara, 1927–1977
• Calendar of the John O'Hara Letters to H. N. Swanson, 1955–1970.
• John O'HaraatIMDb
• Works by or about John O'Haraat theInternet Archive
• Works by John O'HaraatLibriVox(public domain audiobooks)
• John O'Hara Papers.Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.