Appointment in Samarra [Mass Market Paperback]

John O'Hara (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 12, 1982

A twentieth-century classic, Appointment in Samarra 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 into 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.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Exceptionally brilliant.” —New York Herald Tribune

“[O'Hara] is the only American writer to whom America presents itself as a social scene in the way it once presented itself to Henry James, or France to Proust.” —Lionel Trilling, The New York Times

“Dramatic . . . exciting . . . vivid and written at high speed . . . accurate and often penetrating.” —The Nation

“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.” —Ernest Hemingway


From the Trade Paperback edition.

From the Back Cover

“Exceptionally brilliant.” —New York Herald Tribune

“[O'Hara] is the only American writer to whom America presents itself as a social scene in the way it once presented itself to Henry James, or France to Proust.” —Lionel Trilling, The New York Times

“Dramatic . . . exciting . . . vivid and written at high speed . . . accurate and often penetrating.” —The Nation

“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.” —Ernest Hemingway --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (July 12, 1982)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394711920
• ISBN-13: 978-0394711928
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (62 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #745,033 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

74 of 78 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read American Author, October 16, 2002

By 

S. A. Cartwright "Stu Cartwright" (Wayland, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Appointment in Samarra (Library Binding)

Fitzgerald, Hemingway, C.S.Lewis, John Cheever. If any one of these authors was ever important to you, please pick up O'Hara. He's critical to understanding twentieth century American authors. At the very least, you can engage in the unending debate on whether he's worthy of joining this pantheon of writers. Worthy of an airport paperback rack? Smalltime trashy romance writer? Or do you think he paints a richly textured canvas of an America and its high society about to be turn the corner on the first half of the 20th century? An important Irish-Catholic writer?

My tip: read this book. If nothing else you'll learn about bituminous and anthracitic coal, the United Mine Workers, how to mix a martini, (and throw one), why fraternities were ever important, and what a flivver was. It's certainly a period piece, and O'Hara does not hold back with the language of the jazz age...which may confuse modern readers (it was a gay party, his chains dropped a link, etc.) In fact, O'Hara was an early adopter of using slang and vernacular in writing the spoken word, and you can be the judge of whether or not he gets an Irish mobster's (or a "high hat's") tone correctly.

He's really at his best with character development, because Julian English (our protaganist) is our bigoted confidante, our tiresome spouse, our wretched boss, our surly neighbor, our spoiled college-boy brat, our pretentious friend and our preening big man about town all in one. O'Hara waltzes us through Julian's demise and we root for him, for one more chance, all the way down.

38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars But Who Has the Appointment?, April 29, 2001

By 

Gregory N. Hullender (Bellevue, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Appointment in Samarra (Mass Market Paperback)

The title comes from a tale attributed to Somerset Maugham (reprinted just in front of the first page of my edition). As story goes, the servant of a merchant in Baghdad sees Death in the marketplace, is sure she's coming for him, and asks permission to go hide from her in the town of Samarra. The merchant agrees, but then goes to the marketplace himself to have some words with Death about how she treated his servant. (I wish I had a boss like that!) Death denies having threatened the man, "I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra."

From the very beginning, then, we know that the novel concerns someone with an inevitable appointment with Death which he/she cannot escape. Within a few pages, we even know who. Only the particulars remain - or so it would seem.

Julian English does make his appointment with Death, but the author deliberately destroys the impression of inevitability he spent most of the novel creating. Up to the very end, we believe that Julian's impulsive act of throwing a drink into the face of Harry Reilly, his most important creditor, sealed his fate. We, together with Julian, believe that his alienating Reilly leads inevitably to Julian's financial ruin, and, seeing no way out, Julian commits a series of ever more self-destructive acts culminating in his suicide.

And then we learn that Harry Reilly attached no significance to the thrown drink and that he liked Julian all along. Julian's death was not inevitable after all. Also, far from trying to flee his fate, Julian rushes headlong into it, leading one to conclude that Julian isn't the one with the appointment in Samarra after all.

At first that seems absurd - Julian is the central character of the novel, after all. But Julian isn't actually the center of the novel - the people of Gibbsville are. We learn all about the state of Gibbsville in 1930, meeting about fifty different characters from all walks of life - incredible in such a short (240 pages) novel. O'Hara's has no sympathy for the upper classes, and he depicts their society as decadent, corrupt and declining - people who try to pretend that nothing has happened despite the Crash of 1929 and the loss of the coal market, even as a new generation of entrepreneurs like Harry Reilly displaces them. They don't deserve the fine things they have, nor will they keep them much longer

O'Hara shows his real sympathies in the short segments about Luther L. Fleigler and his wife at the beginning and ending of the book. Luther works for Julian's Cadillac dealership, and just as his hard work contrasts with the sloth of the upper classes, so too his happy relationship with his wife contrasts starkly with Julian and Caroline's poisoned marriage. The future belongs to them.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Strange Read, August 12, 2003

By 

brewster22 "brewster22" (Evanston, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Appointment in Samarra: A Novel (Paperback)

It would be easy to dismiss "Appointment in Samarra" as insignificant when compared to other, more well known literature. It's certainly a quick, entertaining read, very funny at times, with a loose, somewhat disjointed quality that gives the whole novel a strange tone. Separate events and characters are introduced that don't seem to have any obvious relation to one another, and at the book's end, they still don't. However, as a time capsule of a specific place and time in American cultural history, it's very well done and fascinating to read.

At its basic level, "Samarra" inserts a stick of dynamite into the safe, complacent world of affluent, East coast snobbery by introducing into it an influx of immigrants and "new" money. The WASP environment of cocktail parties, Ivy League schools and country clubs couldn't be sheltered forever from European emigres, specifically Jews, with money of their own. I don't want to give anything of the plot away, but I will say that there is a tragedy in this book, and the ripples it sends through the rich community that serves as the focus of this novel's story are meant to signify the larger ripples affecting American culture on a much greater scale as the heady days of the Roaring 20's give way to the more sombre and politically aware days of the 30's and 40's.

I'm not completely sure what to make of a side story involving some petty mobsters, but I assume their intrusion into the fabric of this East coast society is meant as yet one more example of the loss of security from which these people felt by rights they would be sheltered.

There is no reason not to read "Appointment in Samarra." It won't take up much of your time, and I promise you won't ever be bored by it. Whether you'll find it profound or especially memorable is another story. I didn't particularly find it either, but I would recommend it nonetheless.