THE JOHN O'HARA SOCIETY

THE JOHN O'HARA SOCIETY

On June 25, 1932, publication of "Mr. Cass and the Ten Thousand Dollars" The New Yorker. The Doctor's Son. This little story concerns social distinctions and snobbery. Here's an example at the opening:

A Mr. Cass is living at his college club and meets Mr. Billings in the elevator. Billings had been a class ahead of Mr. Cass, and the two men seldom spoke.
   "Been to St. Paul lately, Harold?" said Mr. Cass.
   "No, said Billings . . . Billings had intended to cut Mr. Cass, but there was something about the way he had asked the question that made Billings feel not so uppity.
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John O'Hara very much admired the older Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald kept a letter O'Hara wrote him on June 25, 1933. Here are two excerpts:

. . . and I wonder why you do the climber so well. Is it the Irish in you? Must the Irish always have a lot of climber in them? . . .

   My pretty little wife is rolling out to Reno next week, and the girl I loved from the time I was 17 got married in Haiti last month . . . And she was the shadow on the wall that broke up my marriage. Oh, my.
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His "pretty little wife" was going to Reno to divorce him. The girl he loved was the Anglo-Saxon Protestant Margaretta Archbald.