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A Family Party
On March 2, 1956 the short story-novella "A Family Party" was published in Collier's (One of the three stories John O'Hara wrote during his absence from The New Yorker). Also published in Gibbsville, Pa.
A stenographic report of an address given on September 15, 1955 by Lyons (Lykens) citizen Albert W. Shoemaker at the Lyons Hotel at a dinner honoring Dr. Samuel G. Merritt for his forty years service to Lyons and the surrounding communities. It's been said this narrative is part tribute to the author's father, Dr. Patrick O'Hara, and his medical profession; but it's also a graphic historical description of The Region during the first half of the twentieth century. The speaker's lively folksy style holds the reader's attention. A triumph of the narrative form.
The Glendale People
On March 2, 1963 publication of the short story "The Glendale People." The Saturday Evening Post. The Hat on the Bed. John O'Hara's Hollywood.
Dale Connell is a retired Hollywood actor living on Florida's West Coast. His neighbors "... are what he used to call Glendale people, married couples from the Middle West who had come to California to save money on overcoats and tire chains, bought small bungalows in Glendale and Burbank and less well-known places like Watts and Anaheim."
He's trying to write his memoirs, when his publisher makes a surprise call to his cottage to jolt him out of his procrastination.
"Hell, if you just sit down and tell the story of your checkered career, Dale, you'd have a real blockbuster. I admit that. Married what? Four times."
"Five. The first one nobody knows about. That was back in Ohio, when I was twenty years old. I married my piano teacher, she was twenty-eight."
"You didn't stay married to her very long."
"It was annulled. I blew town and joined the Canadian army. Then right after the war I married-"
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Two great character studies - in different regions, different eras.
THE JOHN O'HARA SOCIETY celebrates the life and works of John O'Hara, Pennsylvania's pre-eminent contemporary author and America's greatest short-story writer. The JOHS studies, publishes, and diffuses works by and about the author. Membership is free. For details, contact the JOHS's Corresponding Secretary, Richard Carreño, via Philabooks@yahoo.com. © MMXXIV John O'Hara Society.
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