Appointment in Samarra

'For all its excellence as a social panorama and a sketch of a marriage, it is as a picture of a man destroyed by drink and pride that Appointment in Samarra lives frighteningly in the mind' John UpdikeJulian English prides himself a member of his hometown’s social elite, but from the moment he throws a cocktail in the face of a powerful business associate his life spirals out of control, taking his loving but troubled marriage with it. Following English’s rapid decline and fall, Appointment in Samarra is a fast-paced and blackly comic portrait of 1930s America. O’Hara’s debut novel introduced a prolific new voice to a generation and still stands as one of the great works of American fiction.

Mr O'Hara's eyes and ears have been spared nothing, but he has kept in his heart a curious and bitter mercy, O'Hara writes with swift realism, wisely avoids sentimentality, Dramatic...exciting...vivid and written at high speed...accurate and often penetrating, Better than anyone else, he told the truth about his time, the first half of the twentieth century. He was a professional. He wrote honestly and well

John O'Hara was born in Pennsylvania on 31 January 1905. His first novel, Appointment in Samarra (1934), won him instant acclaim, and he quickly came to be regarded as one of the most prominent writers in America. He won the National Book Award for his novel Ten North Frederick and had more stories published in the New Yorker than anyone in the history of the magazine. His fourteen novels include A Rage to Live, Pal Joey, BUtterfield 8 and From the Terrace. John O'Hara died on 11 April 1970.