I’ve been away for a while, and I came back for a quick browse at the right psychological moment. I hope.
My dear Eve; we are talking here about My Favourite Author!
A man almost completely forgotten by this century, most of whose books are out of print and yet who struggled diligently and triumphed repeatedly with his craft. A man who aimed to present a body of work that would preserve the flavour and fascinations of a particular time and place, O’Hara was trying to be the Balzac of small town, early twentieth century America.
For me, a recent joy of moving at last into a permanent address has been the unpacking of the books I had in storage. All my O’Hara novels in paperback, and the hard-cover versions I am gradually acquiring through second-hand shops.
Grim? Depressing? O’Hara is a morning at nursery school compared to The Shipping News, or any book of Scottish short stories.
What he really had a talent for was dialogue. His characters are alive through what they say, and often you can follow half a page of unattributed exchanges without the slightest confusion as to who exactly is talking.
He was a master of the short story, and his stories were a staple of The New Yorker’s early years. He’s often been anthologised. He had a particular knack for the story where the pay-off was so subtle that many would be puzzled by it. For example, one story ends with a character leaving his apartment, with the bow on his hat on the wrong side. The subtle pay-off (and I had to be told this) is that somehow that character is so out of touch, either through drugs or drink or mental disability that he has put his hat on backwards without noticing it. And hence, all he has said so confidently during the preceding three pages is suspect, because he isn’t as in control of himself as he says. It changes much of the tenor of the story.
But he wasn’t always so subtle.
He also verbalised and made specific the sometimes odd realities of sex and sexual attraction, in a way that no other writer of the time did. Sex suffuses many of his novels, but not in the loathsome “here’s the obligatory inflammatory sex scene” way that those airport novels do. He makes men and women’s interactions an open part of the dynamic of relationships. it sounds dry to say it this way, but in the books it is just interesting and enlightening.
And he had a damn good understanding of how communities work. “Appointment in Samarra” is really about one town. It’s strung around the story of Julian English, whose short life is explored in a way that tells us about a whole society.
Repeatedly he shows a grip of how politics in small towns works, how and why some towns thrive and others fade, how the very rich aproach life, and what their challenges are, and even how the system works in the Hollywood of the Big Studios.
Dear Eve, I suggest the book for you might be “The Big Laugh”. It’s about a young man who becomes a Big Star in Old Hollywood. There’s a moral sense underlining the writing, but it’s aware of the ironies of life. When the young man is a bastard, he’s successful. When he tries to be decent things go awry. The book itself isn’t as simplistic as that. I like it because it’s filled with believable stituations and people and has a nice gritty sense of time and place that is very convincing.
The effort of finding it might be rewarding.
Another favourite, also tinged with Hollywood, is “Sermons and Soda Water”. These are three short novels in one volume, realted by a central character and a heme, or a tone. The Holly wood story in this one concerns a movie star wrestling with mid-career issues, aware that obscurity is a constant possibility, and that tactics and strategies can contribute more than looks or talent, in the struggle to remain a Star. These stories also have a sense of hope that is appealing.
“From The Terrace” is huge, but it’s not his masterpiece, and I suggest you try shorter (and in my opinion better) books first.
And a good Hollywood short story is “Yucca Knolls”, featuring a character who has much in common with Marjorie Main. And another who has much in common with DW Griffiths. And their lives in an exclusive housing development, post-Hollywood.
John O’Hara. One day the bandwagon will sweep around and he’ll be popular again. Thanks for the opportunity to have a little fan rave about him.
Redboss
