Matt Bruccoli: RIP

From Robert Saliba, Morristown, New Jersey:
I was looking forward to some day meeting Dr. Matthhew Bruccoli. A year or two ago I e-mailed him and tell him how much I appreciated his contribution.

He wrote what I consider to be an authoritative biography of John O'Hara. Permit me to quote the last paragraph of the book:

"For forty years he wrote truthfully and exactly about life and people, scorning fashion, to produce a body of work unsurpassed in American literature in scope and fidelity to American life. He was one of our best novelists, our best novella-ist, and our greatest writer of short stories."

Dr. Bruccoli also assembled novellas and short stories of John O'Hara into a book called Gibbsville, PA. I enjoy reading these the best (as well as the novels) because they are about his "anthracite country," and I think the writing really excels because that is where O'Hara's heart was.

I'm looking forward to visiting Pottsville this summer and the dinner theatre performance in July.


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