John O'Hara
Encyclopedia
John Henry O'Hara was an American
writer
. He initially became known for his short stories and later became a best-selling novelist whose works include Appointment in Samarra
and BUtterfield 8
. He was particularly known for an uncannily accurate ear for dialogue. O'Hara was a keen observer of social status and class differences, and wrote frequently about the socially ambitious. His Novel BUtterfield 8 was made into a movie starring Elizabeth Taylor that won an Oscar in 1960.
A controversial figure, O'Hara had a reputation for personal irascibility and for cataloging social ephemera, both of which frequently overshadowed his gifts as a storyteller. Writer Fran Lebowitz
called him "the real F. Scott Fitzgerald
." John Updike
, one of his consistent supporters, grouped him with Chekhov
in a C-SPAN
interview. By contrast, Michiko Kakutani
of the New York Times dismissed him as "a well-known lout."
, Pennsylvania
. He attended Niagara Prep for secondary school in Lewiston, New York
, where he was named Class Poet for Class of 1924. His father died at this time, leaving him unable to afford Yale
, the college of his choice. 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. While still living in Pottsville, O'Hara covered his hometown Pottsville Maroons
of the National Football League
for the local newspaper. 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 barely fictionalized version of Pottsville
, a small city in the coal region
of the United States.
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. 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 [English-language] novels of the twentieth century was used to ridicule the entire project."
Harold Bloom
included Appointment in Samarra
as one of the works in the Western canon
. 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 theater
. 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.
Despite his obvious writing skill, most of O'Hara's longer work was not highly regarded 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, "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."
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
.
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."
"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."
According to biographer Frank MacShane, O'Hara thought that Hemingway's death made him (O'Hara) the leading candidate for the Nobel Prize in 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."
John O'Hara died from cardiovascular disease in Princeton, New Jersey
and is interred there in the Princeton Cemetery
. The epitaph on his tombstone, which he wrote himself, reads: "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."
. MacShane calls them "garrulous and outspoken" and says neither "added much of importance to O'Hara's work." Biographer Shelden Grebstein wrote that in these columns, O'Hara was "simultaneously embarrassing and infuriating in his vaingloriousness, vindictiveness, and general bellicosity." Woolf says these earlier columns anticipated "his disastrous 'My Turn' in Newsday
, which endured fifty-three weeks ... beginning in late 1964... of his dismissive and contemptuous worst."
His first Newsday column opened with the line, "Let's get off to a really bad start." His second complained that "the same hysteria that afflicted the Prohibitionists is now evident among the anti-cigarettists." His third espoused Barry Goldwater
, the Republican nominee for President, by identifying his cause with those people who liked the music of the accordionist Lawrence Welk
, who was considered unsophisticated and "square." "I think it's time the Lawrence Welk people had their say," wrote O'Hara. "The Lester Lanin
and Dizzy Gillespie
people 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." His fifth argued that Martin Luther King should not have received the Nobel Peace Prize.
The syndicated column was not a success, running in a continuously decreasing number of newspapers, and did not endear him to the politically liberal New York literary establishment.
Several of the columns directly exhibit his knowledge of trivia about and yearning for association with Ivy League colleges, 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 in American Broadcasting and thus
The jocular references to Phelps, Canby, and Old Nassau could only have amused a microscopic (if elite) fraction of his readership, and thus give an impression that O'Hara is showing off his insider-like knowledge of these institutions.
Later, he notes that James Gould Cozzens
is a "genuine Harvard alumnus" and speculates that Harvard should broker a television serialization of a Cozzens novel:
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:
He complains that the colleges write him "highly complimentary" letters asking him to perform "chores" such as officiating as writer-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
(The Farmers Hotel,
The Searching Sun,
The Champagne Pool,
Veronique,
The Way It Was)
(The Man Who Could Not Lose [screen treatement] and Far from Heaven [play])
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
. He initially became known for his short stories and later became a best-selling novelist whose works include Appointment in Samarra
Appointment in Samarra
Appointment in Samarra, published in 1934, is the first novel by John O'Hara. It concerns the self-destruction of Julian English, once a member of the social elite of Gibbsville ....
and BUtterfield 8
BUtterfield 8
BUtterfield 8 is a 1960 Metrocolor drama film directed by Daniel Mann, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Laurence Harvey. Taylor, then 28 years old, won an Academy Award for her performance...
. He was particularly known for an uncannily accurate ear for dialogue. O'Hara was a keen observer of social status and class differences, and wrote frequently about the socially ambitious. His Novel BUtterfield 8 was made into a movie starring Elizabeth Taylor that won an Oscar in 1960.
A controversial figure, O'Hara had a reputation for personal irascibility and for cataloging social ephemera, both of which frequently overshadowed his gifts as a storyteller. Writer Fran Lebowitz
Fran Lebowitz
-Life:Born and raised in Morristown, New Jersey, Lebowitz is best known for her sardonic social commentary on American life as filtered through her New York sensibilities. Some reviewers have called her a modern-day Dorothy Parker...
called him "the real F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost...
." John Updike
John Updike
John Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic....
, one of his consistent supporters, grouped him with Chekhov
Anton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
in a C-SPAN
C-SPAN
C-SPAN , an acronym for Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network, is an American cable television network that offers coverage of federal government proceedings and other public affairs programming via its three television channels , one radio station and a group of websites that provide streaming...
interview. By contrast, Michiko Kakutani
Michiko Kakutani
is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning critic for The New York Times and is considered by many to be a leading literary critic in the United States.-Life and career:...
of the New York Times dismissed him as "a well-known lout."
Life
O'Hara was born in PottsvillePottsville, Pennsylvania
Pottsville is the only city in and the county seat of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 15,549 at the 2000 census. The city lies along the west bank of the Schuylkill River, north-west of Philadelphia...
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
. He attended Niagara Prep for secondary school in Lewiston, New York
Lewiston, New York
Lewiston is a village in Niagara County, New York, United States. The population was 2,781 at the 2000 census. The village is named after Morgan Lewis, an early 19th-century governor of New York. It is part of the Buffalo–Niagara Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area.The Village of Lewiston,...
, where he was named Class Poet for Class of 1924. His father died at this time, leaving him unable to afford Yale
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, the college of his choice. 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
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, 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. While still living in Pottsville, O'Hara covered his hometown Pottsville Maroons
Pottsville Maroons
The Pottsville Maroons were an American football team based in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1920, they went on to play in the National Football League for four seasons, from 1925–1928...
of the National Football League
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
for the local newspaper. O'Hara received much critical acclaim for his short stories, more than 200 of which, beginning in 1928, appeared in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
. Many of these stories (and his later novels) were set in Gibbsville, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, a barely fictionalized version of Pottsville
Pottsville, Pennsylvania
Pottsville is the only city in and the county seat of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 15,549 at the 2000 census. The city lies along the west bank of the Schuylkill River, north-west of Philadelphia...
, a small city in the coal region
Coal Region
The Coal Region is a term used to refer to an area of Northeastern Pennsylvania in the central Appalachian Mountains comprising Lackawanna, Luzerne, Columbia, Carbon, Schuylkill, Northumberland, and the extreme northeast corner of Dauphin counties....
of the United States.
In 1934, O'Hara published his first novel, Appointment in Samarra
Appointment in Samarra
Appointment in Samarra, published in 1934, is the first novel by John O'Hara. It concerns the self-destruction of Julian English, once a member of the social elite of Gibbsville ....
, which was acclaimed on publication. This is the O'Hara novel that is most consistently praised by critics. Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
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
Appointment in Samarra
Appointment in Samarra, published in 1934, is the first novel by John O'Hara. It concerns the self-destruction of Julian English, once a member of the social elite of Gibbsville ....
on the Modern Library
Modern Library
The Modern Library is a publishing company. Founded in 1917 by Albert Boni and Horace Liveright as an imprint of their publishing company Boni & Liveright, it was purchased in 1925 by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer...
's list of the 100 best [English-language] novels of the twentieth century was used to ridicule the entire project."
Harold Bloom
Harold Bloom
Harold Bloom is an American writer and literary critic, and is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. He is known for his defense of 19th-century Romantic poets, his unique and controversial theories of poetic influence, and his prodigious literary output, particularly for a literary...
included Appointment in Samarra
Appointment in Samarra
Appointment in Samarra, published in 1934, is the first novel by John O'Hara. It concerns the self-destruction of Julian English, once a member of the social elite of Gibbsville ....
as one of the works in the Western canon
Western canon
The term Western canon denotes a canon of books and, more broadly, music and art that have been the most important and influential in shaping Western culture. As such, it includes the "greatest works of artistic merit." Such a canon is important to the theory of educational perennialism and the...
. This successful work was followed by several other novels such as BUtterfield 8
BUtterfield 8
BUtterfield 8 is a 1960 Metrocolor drama film directed by Daniel Mann, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Laurence Harvey. Taylor, then 28 years old, won an Academy Award for her performance...
. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
O'Hara was a correspondent in the Pacific theater
Pacific Ocean theater of World War II
The Pacific Ocean theatre was one of four major naval theatres of war of World War II, which pitted the forces of Japan against those of the United States, the British Commonwealth, the Netherlands and France....
. After the war, he wrote screenplays and more novels including Ten North Frederick
Ten North Frederick
Ten North Frederick is a 1955 novel by John O'Hara. It focuses on the life of an ambitious American named Joe Chapin, who desires to become President of the United States. The novel tells Chapin's story along with those of his patrician wife, two rebellious children, and mistress. It won the 1956...
, for which he won the 1955 National Book Award
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
. 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
Appointment in Samarra
Appointment in Samarra, published in 1934, is the first novel by John O'Hara. It concerns the self-destruction of Julian English, once a member of the social elite of Gibbsville ....
, which approached the boundaries of what was then permissible; BUtterfield 8
BUtterfield 8
BUtterfield 8 is a 1960 Metrocolor drama film directed by Daniel Mann, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Laurence Harvey. Taylor, then 28 years old, won an Academy Award for her performance...
was considered particularly shocking and was banned in Australia until 1963.
Despite his obvious writing skill, most of O'Hara's longer work was not highly regarded 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
Wright State University
Wright State University is a comprehensive public university with strong doctoral, research, and undergraduate programs, rated among the 260 Best National Universities listed in the annual "America's Best Colleges" rankings by U.S. News and World Report. Wright State is located in Fairborn, Ohio,...
states, "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."
His 1939 epistolary novel
Epistolary novel
An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, although diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used. Recently, electronic "documents" such as recordings and radio, blogs, and e-mails have also come into use...
, Pal Joey
Pal Joey
Pal Joey is a 1940 epistolary novel by John O'Hara, which became the basis of the 1940 stage musical comedy and 1957 motion picture of the same name, with music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Lorenz Hart....
, led to the notable musical of the same name, with libretto by O'Hara and songs by Rodgers and Hart
Rodgers and Hart
Rodgers and Hart were an American songwriting partnership of composer Richard Rodgers and the lyricist Lorenz Hart...
. The 1940 production starred Gene Kelly
Gene Kelly
Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer...
and Vivienne Segal
Vivienne Segal
Vivienne Sonia Segal was an American actress and singer.Segal was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is best remembered for creating the role of Vera Simpson in Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's Pal Joey and introduced the song "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered"...
; it was successfully revived in 1952 and became a 1957 motion picture starring Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
and Rita Hayworth
Rita Hayworth
Rita Hayworth was an American film actress and dancer who attained fame during the 1940s as one of the era's top stars...
.
Brendan Gill
Brendan Gill
Brendan Gill wrote for The New Yorker for more than 60 years. He also contributed film criticism for Film Comment and wrote a popular book about his time at the New Yorker magazine.-Biography:...
, 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."
"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."
According to biographer Frank MacShane, O'Hara thought that Hemingway's death made him (O'Hara) the leading candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature
Nobel Prize in Literature
Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
. 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
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
told O'Hara that he had, in fact, been nominated twice. When Steinbeck
John Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was an American writer. He is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden and the novella Of Mice and Men...
won the prize in 1962, O'Hara wired, "Congratulations, I can think of only one other author I'd rather see get it."
John O'Hara died from cardiovascular disease in Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton is a community located in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is best known as the location of Princeton University, which has been sited in the community since 1756...
and is interred there in the Princeton Cemetery
Princeton Cemetery
Princeton Cemetery is located in Borough of Princeton, New Jersey. It is owned by the Nassau Presbyterian Church. John F. Hageman in his 1878 history of Princeton, New Jersey refers to the cemetery as: "The Westminster Abbey of the United States."...
. The epitaph on his tombstone, which he wrote himself, reads: "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."
Columns
In the early 1950s, O'Hara wrote a weekly book column, "Sweet and Sour," for the Trenton Times-Advertiser, and a biweekly column, "Appointment with O'Hara," for Collier'sCollier's Weekly
Collier's Weekly was an American magazine founded by Peter Fenelon Collier and published from 1888 to 1957. With the passage of decades, the title was shortened to Collier's....
. MacShane calls them "garrulous and outspoken" and says neither "added much of importance to O'Hara's work." Biographer Shelden Grebstein wrote that in these columns, O'Hara was "simultaneously embarrassing and infuriating in his vaingloriousness, vindictiveness, and general bellicosity." Woolf says these earlier columns anticipated "his disastrous 'My Turn' in Newsday
Newsday
Newsday is a daily American newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties and the New York City borough of Queens on Long Island, although it is sold throughout the New York metropolitan area...
, which endured fifty-three weeks ... beginning in late 1964... of his dismissive and contemptuous worst."
His first Newsday column opened with the line, "Let's get off to a really bad start." His second complained that "the same hysteria that afflicted the Prohibitionists is now evident among the anti-cigarettists." His third espoused Barry Goldwater
Barry Goldwater
Barry Morris Goldwater was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. An articulate and charismatic figure during the first half of the 1960s, he was known as "Mr...
, the Republican nominee for President, by identifying his cause with those people who liked the music of the accordionist Lawrence Welk
Lawrence Welk
Lawrence Welk was an American musician, accordionist, bandleader, and television impresario, who hosted The Lawrence Welk Show from 1955 to 1982...
, who was considered unsophisticated and "square." "I think it's time the Lawrence Welk people had their say," wrote O'Hara. "The Lester Lanin
Lester Lanin
Lester Lanin was an American jazz and pop music bandleader....
and Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
people 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." His fifth argued that Martin Luther King should not have received the Nobel Peace Prize.
The syndicated column was not a success, running in a continuously decreasing number of newspapers, and did not endear him to the politically liberal New York literary establishment.
Several of the columns directly exhibit his knowledge of trivia about and yearning for association with Ivy League colleges, 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 in American Broadcasting and thus
- is a beneficiary of the television program Peyton PlacePeyton Place (TV series)Peyton Place is an American prime-time soap opera which aired on ABC in half-hour episodes from September 15, 1964 to June 2, 1969.Based upon the 1956 novel of the same name by Grace Metalious, the series was preceded by a 1957 film adaptation. A total of 514 episodes were broadcast, in...
... in that Yale Blue Heaven Up Above, where William Lyon PhelpsWilliam Lyon PhelpsWilliam Lyon Phelps was an American author, critic and scholar. He taught the first American university course on the modern novel. He was a well-known speaker who drew large crowds...
and Henry Seidel CanbyHenry Seidel CanbyHenry Seidel Canby was a critic, editor, and Yale University professor.Canby was born in Wilmington, Delaware and attended Wilmington Friends School...
may meet every afternoon for tea, there must be some embarrassment. Assuming that Harvard men also go to heaven (PrincetonPrinceton UniversityPrinceton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
men go back to Old Nassau), I fancy that they are having a little fun with Dr. Phelps and Dr. Canby on the subject of Peyton Place.
The jocular references to Phelps, Canby, and Old Nassau could only have amused a microscopic (if elite) fraction of his readership, and thus give an impression that O'Hara is showing off his insider-like knowledge of these institutions.
Later, he notes that James Gould Cozzens
James Gould Cozzens
James Gould Cozzens was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist.He is often grouped today with his contemporaries John O'Hara and John P. Marquand, but his work is generally considered more challenging. Despite initial critical acclaim, his popularity came gradually...
is a "genuine Harvard alumnus" and speculates that Harvard should broker a television serialization of a Cozzens novel:
- But Cozzens makes his home in Williamstown, Mass.Williamstown, MassachusettsWilliamstown is a town in Berkshire County, in the northwest corner of Massachusetts. It shares a border with Vermont to the north and New York to the west. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 7,754 at the 2010 census...
, and they have a college there. When Sinclair Lewis lived 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 the National Institute of Arts and Letters; the Gold Medal of the Academy of Arts and Letters; the Critics Circle Award; and the Donaldson 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 as writer-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 YaleYale UniversityYale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
had given me a degree, I could have joined the Yale ClubYale Club of New York CityThe Yale Club of New York City, commonly called the Yale Club, is a private club in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA Its membership is restricted almost entirely to alumni and faculty of Yale University, University of Virginia and Dartmouth College...
, 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.
Novels
- Appointment in SamarraAppointment in SamarraAppointment in Samarra, published in 1934, is the first novel by John O'Hara. It concerns the self-destruction of Julian English, once a member of the social elite of Gibbsville ....
(1934) - BUtterfield 8BUtterfield 8BUtterfield 8 is a 1960 Metrocolor drama film directed by Daniel Mann, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Laurence Harvey. Taylor, then 28 years old, won an Academy Award for her performance...
(1935) - Hope of Heaven (1938)
- Pal JoeyPal JoeyPal Joey is a 1940 epistolary novel by John O'Hara, which became the basis of the 1940 stage musical comedy and 1957 motion picture of the same name, with music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Lorenz Hart....
(1940) - A Rage to LiveA Rage to LiveA Rage to Live is a 1965 American drama film directed by Walter Grauman and starring Suzanne Pleshette as a woman whose passions wreak havoc on her life. The screenplay by John T. Kelley is based on the 1949 novel of the same name by John O'Hara.-Plot:...
(1949) - The Farmers Hotel (1951)
- Ten North FrederickTen North FrederickTen North Frederick is a 1955 novel by John O'Hara. It focuses on the life of an ambitious American named Joe Chapin, who desires to become President of the United States. The novel tells Chapin's story along with those of his patrician wife, two rebellious children, and mistress. It won the 1956...
(1955) - A Family Party (1956)
- From the Terrace (1958)
- Ourselves to Know (1960)
- The Big Laugh (1962)
- Elizabeth AppletonElizabeth AppletonElizabeth Appleton is a novel by John O'Hara first published in 1963. It is about a rich New York woman born in 1910 who, at the age of 21, marries beneath her. She follows her husband to his hometown in Pennsylvania, where he enjoys a modest academic career as a history professor...
(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)
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 treatement] and Far from Heaven [play])
Nonfiction
- Sweet and Sour (1954) Assorted columns on books and authors
- My Turn (1966) Fifty-three weekly columns written for NewsdayNewsdayNewsday is a daily American newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties and the New York City borough of Queens on Long Island, although it is sold throughout the New York metropolitan area...
- Letters (1978)
Further reading
- Gill, Brendan. Here at The New YorkerHere at The New YorkerHere at The New Yorker is a 1975 best-selling book by American writer Brendan Gill, writer and drama critic for the magazine The New Yorker.-The book:...
. Random House, 1975. 1997 reprint: Da Capo Press; 1st Da Capo Press, ISBN 0-306-80810-2. 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, Random House. (Collected newspaper columns).
- Farr, Finis (1973): O'Hara: A Biography. Little Brown, Boston.
- Bruccoli, Matthew J. (1975): The O'Hara Concern: A Biography of John O'Hara. Random House, New York
- MacShane, Frank (1980): The Life of John O'Hara. Dutton, New York
- Woolf, Geoffrey (2003): The Art of Burning Bridges: A Life of John O'Hara. Knopf, New York.
- The Western Canon: Appointment in SamarraAppointment in SamarraAppointment in Samarra, published in 1934, is the first novel by John O'Hara. It concerns the self-destruction of Julian English, once a member of the social elite of Gibbsville ....
included by Harold BloomHarold BloomHarold Bloom is an American writer and literary critic, and is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. He is known for his defense of 19th-century Romantic poets, his unique and controversial theories of poetic influence, and his prodigious literary output, particularly for a literary...
External links
- John O'Hara's hometown Pottsville, Pa.
- 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