THE JOHN O'HARA SOCIETY

THE JOHN O'HARA SOCIETY

From a May 17, 1961 letter to William Maxwell, his editor at the New Yorker, who had just published his own book and had it reviewed:

   It was a very distressing conversation, but I am tougher than you, having been toughened....
   You apparently are not aware of what the publication of a book can do to you. It is really foolish to try to pretend that it has not happened. You got uniformly good reviews, as far as I have seen, and you should let yourself enjoy them; and if you run across any bad ones, you might as well suffer through them. It is all part of the postpartum part of the creative process. I have come out 17 times, you have come out three, and at longer intervals; and I know what to expect. I no longer read all my reviews; the really bad ones are screened by Sister and Bennett Cerf, and certain reviewers and certain publications are predictable. But for my first ten books I read everything, everywhere, and the only thing worse than reading some of those reviews would have been not to read them.....
   I am doing more work than ever before in my life, and I am enjoying it, but I no longer can do eight-hour stretches of work. The most I can do now is four hours, although three years ago I could still do eight.

On May 17, 1930, publication of "The New Office." The New Yorker. Hagedorn & Brownmiller are moving to a new building on Park and 46th. A discussion of who's going to get which office.