Dueling Biographers

Biographies Get a Second Look

Thanks to member Richard Meyer, Washington, we have a second chance to look at how The New York Times reviewed two of the principal biographies of The Master. Not surprisingly, given the time when they were written (in the '70s), the reviews were negative. As O'Hara himself once said, 'Donnez moi a break!' Follow the links below:

O'Hara; A Biography. By Finis Farr. Illustrated, 3... - View Article - The New York Times


The kind of biography that gives the genre a bad n... - View Article - The New York Times

Welcome New Member: Brad Rogers!

New Members

Let's welcome Brad Rogers as the Society's newest member.

Brad writes:

'Brad is an Irish-Pennsylvania Dutchman from Coffeetown, PA, which is a village in Northampton County along the Delaware River. He is currently a grad student at Lehigh University, where he is writing about America's obsession with baseball and business. He first read O'Hara's Gibbsville, PA anthology several years ago, and was instantly hooked. He has since read several of the novels, and looks forward to the rest when his dissertation is finished.'

Another Country Heard From

Department of Amplification: The New Yorker Replies

Personal message from Pal Joey: Dear Pal Richard, Maybe this would be helpful? ;-) Best, Pal Joey Click on the image below to go to this article from the Oct 22, 1938 of The New Yorker. Note: Registration is required to view this article. If you currently subscribe to The New Yorker, please register now to access the complete archive. Otherwise, you can become a digital subscriber. If you cannot see the image above, follow this link: http://archives.newyorker.com/?i=1938-10-22#folio=022

Shadowing O'Hara in The Region

Published: Sunday, November 9, 2008

John O'Hara fans, take note! Kerry Zukus is following in the noted author's footsteps and he's quite good at it.

In 1934, O'Hara used Pennsylvania's anthracite region and his hometown, Pottsville, as the setting for his first, and most famous, novel, "Appointment in Samarra."

Nearly 75 years later, Zukus also places "The Fourth House" in coal country, but the first-time novelist focuses his attention on Frackville, where he grew up in the 1960s and 1970s.

With acknowledgement to his literary predecessor, he even borrowed several of O'Hara's fictitious place names, among them, "Mountain City" for Frackville, "Gibbsville" for Pottsville and "Lantenengo County" for Schuylkill County. But Zukus is less caustic than O'Hara in the way he depicts his hometown and his characters are from a totally different strata of society.

O'Hara eventually softened in his attitude toward Pottsville but, in his earlier years, he savaged it as "that God-awful town." He was just as scathing writing about the townspeople who were his favorite literary targets — old-money aristocrats, coal magnates, Pottsville and Schuylkill Country Club members.

"Appointment in Samarra" outraged Pottsville, not only because of the way it portrayed the city but also because of its sexual content.

In the current "anything goes" culture, it's doubtful that Zukus' frequent use of obscenities and graphic descriptions of sex in "The Fourth House" will produce a similar reaction in Frackville, but he worries that what he says about the town may produce a backlash.

After expressing warm feelings for Frackville during a telephone interview from his home in Red Bank, N.J., he added that describing it as "a black silt hamlet," "block aft er block of r ow houses" and "a town where time stood still" was calling it as he saw it. He also stressed that anyone walking its streets, especially the business section of Lehigh Avenue with its bulldozed lots and empty storefronts, would reach the same conclusions he did.

Frackville, unlike Pottsville, never had a local aristocracy or exclusive clubs. The most prominent social organization always was and still is the Elks.

For the most part, the central characters in "The Fourth House" come from the present-day middle class, the descendants of miners whose hands were always grimy from their occupation. Zukus, while not sugarcoating the people that he writes about, treats them with more respect than O'Hara did the powerful and privileged in "Appointment in Samarra."

The main character in Zukus' book is Jordan Matino, a young Philadelphia urologist. When he returns to Mountain City to spend Thanksgiving with his mother, he falls in love with Heather George, t he girl who li ved next door to him when he was growing up. After they decide to marry, their families, lifelong best friends, are strangely unenthusiastic. The couple's search for an answer to the curious reaction uncovers a lifetime of secrets and lies.

Admittedly, I read "The Fourth House" with great anticipation because I grew up in Frackville, although decades earlier than Zukus.

I wasn't disappointed. Zukus has a keen ear for coal region speech patterns and he brings to life a town that still retains remnants of the days when I lived there.

Another reason I found the book absorbing was the fun I had identifying places and people. Frackville's Nice Street is renamed Good Street. When Jordan and Heather have latenight, clandestine sex on the putting green at the home of Stan Burke, Mountain City's "one rich guy," Zukus is obviously referring to real-life Walter Baran.

Occasionally, he uses actual coal region names, including Kerlavage and Nahas. He a lso mentions Th e Fink and The Alley, popular night spots on Route 61 during the 1970s and 1980s.

A connection to Frackville isn't necessary to find the book compelling. I would have read it in one sitting even if I hadn't been familiar with the town. Many of the quirks, attitudes and idiosyncrasies of Frackville that Zukas portrays in his book can be found in small communities everywhere.

In "The Fourth House," Jordan Matino's mother, Opal, is a church organist and his father is not a presence in his life.

Zukus' mother, Dawn Rader Zukus Woratyla, West West Terrace, played the organ at St. Peter's United Church of Christ when she lived in Frackville. His parents divorced when he was a child and his father died while he was still too young to have been influenced by him. When I pointed out the similarities to Zukus and asked if the novel was partly based on his own life, he replied, "Most fiction writers take kernels of reality and then expand on them. They pla y the 'what if' game, meaning what would follow if this or that had happened."

What happened to Zukus after graduating from North Schuylkill High School in 1976 is that he attended Berklee School of Music in Boston, then worked in the arts as an actor, director and frustrated (his word) composer. After marrying, he moved from Boston to Red Bank, where he entered politics as a city councilman and became active in urban and downtown revitalization. In the past three years, he has also ghostwritten some 30 books, most of them memoirs, self-help and business. He and his wife have two sons.

Even Zukus uses the word "weird" to describe the marketing history of "The Fourth House," the only debut novel published by Madison Park Press, an imprint of Book of the Month Club. Publishing mergers and a series of cost-cutting measures made the new owner, Bertelsman, decide to get rid of the Madison Park subsidiary, but the novel can still be ordered from Book of the Month and it s si ster book clubs, Rhapsody, Doubleday, and Literary Guild.

Eventually, it will be sold through bookstores. In the meantime, it's available on Zukus' Web site and at the Lazy Dog Coffeehouse in Minersville, where the author will be on hand from 5:30 to 8 p.m. Wednesday for a book-signing and question-and- answer session.

John O'Hara, who died in 1970, turned out dozens of columns and commentaries as well as some 400 short stories and 16 novels and novellas before he died in 1970, but he never did a sequel to "Appointment in Samarra."

Zukus has a long way to go before catching up to O'Hara's output. However, using the same coal region setting but with different characters, he's well on his way to finishing a continuation of "The Fourth House," meaning that, at least where sequels to first novels are concerned, he will soon be one up on the man he considers his literary idol.

(Geier is a correspondent)

Digital II: O'Hara and The New Yorker

It's All in There If you're a subscriber to The New Yorker, there's a new way to endulge your taste for the Master's short stories -- the ones published in the magazine, at least. Well, up to a point. By registering, any New Yorker subscriber gets immediate ditigal access to all the pages to the masgazine -- up to a point. That point is 2001. Before that date, it's abstracts only. So, yes, you can explore O'Hara's works in the magazines. But if you want to read them in their entirity, you still need to find an original magazine, in which the piece was published, or still get the full set of ditigal discs of the magazine. (Still, about $100). --RDC

Digital I: Pal Joey

Unearthing O'Hara: In Search Of Pal Joey By Levi Asher February 21, 2006 For decades, I've been wanting to read John O'Hara's original "Pal Joey" series from the New Yorker in the late 30's. These short humor pieces by the celebrated novelist became the basis for a classic jazz-age Rodgers and Hart Broadway musical, Pal Joey, which opened in 1940 with a then-unknown Gene Kelly in the title role. It wasn't a huge hit, perhaps because its storyline was too gritty. Joey is a charming but selfish young singer and nightclub habitue, intensely ambitious but unable to hold onto a dollar or resist a pretty face. He shows up in Chicago, gets a singing job, seduces several women, flirts with success for the first time in his life, and then blows the whole deal. Like many musicals from the great age of Cole Porter, George Gershwin and Rodgers and Hart, Pal Joey is not a masterpiece because of the plot but because of the songs. The best way to enjoy it might be to listen to the original cast recording of the show's 1950 revival, a nearly perfect album full of hot, slick numbers like "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered", "You Mustn't Kick It Around" and "Plant Ya Now, Dig Ya Later". Forget Rent and Phantom of the Opera; if you're looking for good showtunes, this is the stuff. I've read and enjoyed many John O'Hara novels and short stories, but I've never been able to find a single one of the numerous New Yorker "Pal Joey" pieces that inspired this play. The stories were once collected in book form to coincide with the release of the awful 1957 film version of Pal Joey, which is one of the worst things Frank Sinatra ever did (he completely failed to inhabit the character, and the film cut most of the best songs). This book went quickly out of print, and while a few used copies can be found, I get the feeling from the looks of these descriptions that they'd arrive with crackly yellow pages and a weird smell, so I never bought one. I also could have gone to a library and dug up the original New Yorkers, but I never did, and this is where the situation was stuck for many years, until I suddenly got the Complete New Yorker eight-DVD set for Hanukkah. I felt a great thrill of anticipation as I fired up Disk 7 (1937-1947) and entered "John O'Hara" into the author box. First thing I noticed: John O'Hara wrote a lot of New Yorker stories. A real lot. I click and click, one story after another (I quickly gave up trying to read them all; it's a lifetime's worth) but there's no nightclub crooner named Joey to be found. Then I reach Oct 22, 1938, a modest issue with a cover illustration of a fox hunt observed by two carloads of tourists. And there it is on page 23, sitting quietly across a full-page cartoon featuring a tuxedo'd gentleman seated next to a hooker in a courtroom who asks "Just visiting the city?" The title is Pal Joey. I dig in and immediately start enjoying the fast pace. O'Hara is a master of slang and dialogue, always expressing himself best when letting his characters do the talking. Here, Joey is the talker, and a glance at the first Pal Joey story quickly explains the odd title phrase, which I've always wondered about. It turns out the stories are all written in the form of letters from one roving young jazz singer to another, and they're addressed to "Pal Ted" from "Pal Joey". I'm also amused to see that O'Hara is using the quaint technique of showing us all his character's spelling errors, which combined with all the slang makes the stories come off something like Flowers For Algernon filtered through Damon Runyon. The vocabulary is fascinating; a girl Joey's pursuing is a "mouse", a business idea is an "angle", and, more than a half century before MTV began taking us into the homes of Missy Elliot and DMX, a home is a "crib". Due to the Complete New Yorker's crappy excuse for a search engine (they really should have hired me to design this DVD package; I would have done a better job and probably charged less), I am not completely sure that the twelve Pal Joey pieces I found represent all the pieces O'Hara ever published in the magazine. But these are the only ones I could find. It's interesting that the series ends abruptly in 1940, which is the year the Broadway play opened. Let's take it from the top: Oct 22, 1938: Pal Joey "DEAR PAL TED: Well at last I am getting around to knocking off a line or two to let you know how much I apprsiate it you sending me that wire on opening nite." It's a self-contained piece, and it's easy to imagine that O'Hara intended to be done with this Joey character after this one appearance. Joey fills Ted in on his travels from Michigan to Ohio, where he meets a new mouse with a rich father and also finds a new nightclub to work in. "Well you might say I ran the opening nite. I m.c.'d and they had a couple kids from a local dancing school doing tap, one of them not bad altho no serious competition for Ginger Rogers." Joey proudly encloses $30 towards a $50 loan from Ted, which he guesses Ted didn't expect: "I guess you kissed that fifty goodbye but that isn't the way I do things." Nov 26, 1938: Ex-Pal The developing plot takes a disturbing early turn when Joey accuses his Pal Ted of violating an important confidence. Joey told Ted to look up a certain girl, and Ted did, but then Ted told the girl what Joey said about her, and it got all over town and now Joey's in big trouble. "The way I get it you meet this mouse and right off you shoot off your face about I wrote you and told you to look her up and she gets the wrong impression because as I understand it she thinks you think all you have to do is mention my name and you are in." Ted's indiscretion costs Joey his new job, and at the end of this piece Joey is heading for New York City. April 1, 1939: How I Am Now In Chi I still haven't located the storyline from the play, but we seem to be getting closer. All the action in Rodgers and Hart's Pal Joey takes place in Chicago, so I am glad Joey didn't spend too long in New York. The story of how Joey is now in Chi starts in Michigan again, in fact, and it involves the same mouse from the October and November installments who he is still fooling around with. But her high society friends and relatives close ranks against the slick newcomer, and Joey ends up being personally escorted to the local train station where he is put on a train to Chi-town somewhat against his will, though he manages to get some free chewing-gum and magazines out of the deal. This is the best Joey piece so far, and contains many amusing observations about high society customs. "Then around the end of January they were having this ball in honor of the President (Roosevelt) to get up a fund that they would give for this infantile paralasys. Very white of them as they sit around all year and say what a heel he is, and on his birthday they give him this ball ..." May 13, 1939: Bow Wow Score! This is the story that shows up in the first act of the play, and it's also a solid piece. Joey meets a sweet-looking mouse peering into a pet shop window, and to make an impression on the young woman he pretends to be a dog-lover. "Then she said why didnt I buy this puppy and I said for the same reason why I didnt buy a Dusenburg, money. Well the effect it had on her was wonderful. I could see tears in her eyes ... I began telling her about Skippy the airdale that I didn't have when I was a kid and pretty soon got to believing it myself, all about how my heart was broken when poor little Skippy was crushed beneath the wheels of a 10 ton truck." In the mus ical, of course, this is the point where Joey starts singing 'I Could Write A Book', and I can almost hear the orchestra cueing up. In lieu of music, the text version provides added detail such as the girl's name (Betty Hardiman) and how long it took Joey to score with her (at least a month). Oct 7, 1939:Avast and Belay Nazi Germany has invaded Poland, and Joey is getting patriotic. He urges Ted (who appears to be considerably more successful than Joey at this point) to consider a scheme wherein they both join the Navy and start a Navy jazz band. "Charley said a band like this no doubt would be booked for liberty bond engagements when they start selling liberty bonds to the people. I tho't of an angle there and asked Charley, 'Suppose we are booked into a town to sell these liberty bonds for the government do we get our percent of the gross' but Charley said not with Mr. Whiskers at the gate, nobody cuts in on Mr. Whiskers." November 25, 1939: Joey on Herta The DVD copy of this issue (digitized from paper, and stored in PDF facsimile format) contains two charming electronic coffee stains right on the sixth Pal Joey piece. For real. Anyway, our hero has now become a mentor and manager to a young female vocalist, but has no taste for the excruciating details of the music promotion business. "So I entered into the situation and informed them that i would take care of the clothes dept. and out of my own pocket advanced her $9.50 so she could pour herself into a $39.50 no. that showed everything but her scar where she had the appendisetis if she ever had it (some spelling I admit)." December 23, 1939: Joey on the Cake Line Joey's down on his luck at Christmastime. "Well Merry Christmas, as the saying goes. Guess I will have to go to bed for 24 hrs so I dont have to stop hating my fellow men." February 3, 1940: The Erloff I'm not sure I fully get this piece, and I'm also starting to despair of ever finding the second storyline from the musical, in which an older, married society lady meets Joey at the club, falls in love with him, sings "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered", agrees to fund him in starting his own nightclub, Chez Joey, and then pulls out of the deal when he fails to keep up his side of the gigolo act. I haven't run into this lady yet, and I know there aren't many stories left. This is a typically funny one, but I really don't get the title joke, in which a rich old man refers to everything as "the erloff". Is there a meaning in there somewhere? I always need jokes explained to me, especially jokes from 1940. Anyway, I like the way Joey describes nightclub ambience, as when he describes a singer he does not enjoy: "The old dame got up again and began horse-whipping The Lamp is Low." March 2, 1940: Even The Greeks This is a pleasant anecdote about a greek coffee shop in wintertime Chi ("I mean weather that is so cold that the other day this pan handler came up to me and braced me and said I look as if I had a warm heart and I gave him a two-bit piece because if it wasn't for him would not of known if i was alive or frozen to death"). The coffee shop story is also heartwarming, though Joey is not the lead character in the tale and there's less Joey here than usual. Also: three pieces left and still no sign of the elegant society lady. March 30, 1940: Joey and the Calcutta Club Another anecdote. O'Hara's getting lazy with these pieces. But the tall tale is a good one, involving a pretty woman with a British accent and a good sob story. Joey picks her up (he thinks) but she ends up scamming him out of some pocket cash. The next day he learns she's played the same game with several other men around the club. They then decide to partner up with her when a new target arrives in town. "You have to admire a girl like that from Buffalo, N.Y. where she is from. That is how English she is." May 4, 1940: Joey and Mavis I can't tell for sure, but maybe this is the society dame story I've been waiting for. Except it's quite different from the version in the musical. Her name is Mavis (she's Vera in the play), and she's not married but rather a wealthy widow. And she doesn't fund his dream nightclub, Chez Joey, but instead simply talks of hiring him for a new nightclub she might open. I'm not even sure if this piece is the origin of the musical's female lead, but she's the only rich broad who comes into the club with an entourage while he's performing, so I think this is as close as we'll get. "I do not know how I happen to miss Mavis but I did not see her until I had to go in again and polish off some more dittys and they had a table ringside, and I went over and asked them if they had any request nos. and Mavis asked for two requests but did not have both of them only the Beguin no. The other was an oldy like My Buddy which they were singing during the civil war. I know it but forgot the lyics. She looked around 32 or 33, inclined to take on a little weight but I also like them zoftick as some goose in the band says." July 13, 1940: A New Career Is this the last Joey story ever? I don't know for sure, but it's the last one I found amongst hundreds more O'Hara New Yorker pieces. It's a funny little piece in which Joey overhears some compelling music, plunks it out on a piano, and decides he now has a future as a songwriter. Here's his farewell to the increasingly successful Ted, who now has a secretary, and to us: "I know there is no larceny in you Ted boy so what I am going to do is go to a music store and get one of those recording machines and play the tune and cut a wax of it. I will cut a couple and send one to you so that if you lose it or anything I will still have one and anyway that will show that it was my idea. Then when I send it to you you play it over and see if you think it has possibilities and if so maybe you can get Johnny Mercer or somebody to write some lyrics for it. I will guarantee to let you play it first over the air and who knows but perhaps that is not a new career for me, that of song writer. I have a lot of ideas along this line and only need a little encouragement. My tune can be played as either a rumba or conga, fox trot or waltz. If I could get a good Ascap rating this year I would quit this business in a minute and stop worrying about Harry the explorer. So look in the mail any day now for a record. Be sure and tell your secretary that anything from me is to go to you without opening it. As always, PAL JOEY" Hanukah present That was fantastic. What a great gift - to you and to us. The gift that keeps on giving (is that a 40's expression or a pumped up 70's?) You not only informed that the stories existed in the archives of the New Yorker, but you've taken the time to sleuth them out and bring em on over. Now I'd love to see the cartoons you found on the way, and I need to hear the Show recording. Great article, Levi. You've done us all a service here that is uncountable in change. Nothing in the world like a New Yorker to unearth New Yorker gems. (don't know what 'erloff' is, but I can make some enquires) Comment by judih. -- February 21st, 2006 7:20 pm i love it… That's the cat's meow! This is good stuff, my man. Freshly archival. Right down to the coffee stain. Nice reporting. hehehe . . . mouse . . . I must find out what Erloff means. Comment by Billectric -- February 22nd, 2006 5:37 am Levi, could you give us some examples of the word "erloff" as it is used in context? This might give me a clue. Also, that line, "The old dame got up again and began horse-whipping The Lamp is Low" is hilarious. Comment by Billectric -- February 22nd, 2006 6:53 am Bill, I don't have the text nearby, but if I remember correctly what happens is that Joey is talking to an old rich guy who runs the clubs in Chicago, and the guy asks Joey how he likes the erloff. Joey wonders what an erloff is, decides it's the club, and tells the old guy he likes it fine. Then the old guy says it again but this time Joey thinks he's talking about the singer. Later he says something like "everything is erloff around here". I think the joke is that Joey doesn't know what it means either. Maybe me and Joey are both missing something obvious, though. Comment by brooklyn -- February 22nd, 2006 8:18 am I'm starting to think it's just a word made-up by O'Hara, like "blah, blah." I can't find anything on "erloff" at all. Comment by Billectric -- February 23rd, 2006 6:50 am

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An Evening With novelist and "Lantenengo County" native Kerry Zukus,

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"THE FOURTH HOUSE"

Reading from his John O'Hara-inspired novel, Q&A, book sale and signing.

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Wednesday, November 12, 2008

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6:30 PM to 8 PM

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Pottsville, Anyone?

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Jenny and I plan to attend Thursday night in Pottsville at the theatre event at 1440 Mohantongo Street, which has a champagne reception afterward. If anyone wants to have a short dinner with us beforehand, let us know. Robert Saliba. Morristown, NJ

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Parker-O'Hara Hollywood

Parker's W. Hollywood Walking Tour Set for Sept. 27 Dorothy Parker's West Hollywood Walking Tour will take place on Saturday, September 27, 2008 starting at 10 a.m. at Washington Mutual Bank, 8158 Sunset Boulevard. The tour will be hosted by the Los Angeles Chapter of the Dorothy Parker Society. Participants in this rare opportunity will have the opportunity to visit writer Dorothy Parker's residences and favorite spots in and around West Hollywood during her Hollywood years. Learn more about Ms. Parker's activities in Los Angeles in the 1930's through the 1960's and hear stories about her contemporaries and friends such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, John O'Hara, S.J. Perelman and Charles Brackett. Admission is free. For reservations and for more information, please call (323) 848-6883 or (626) 376-7605 or email info@adriennecrew.com For the deaf and hard of hearing, please call (323) 848-6496. From Richard: I spoke to Adrienne today. Our members are invited to attend. Moreover, she's passing on the word about our group about membership opportunities; it being symbiotic with her Parker Society.

We're Back At the Warwick!

AGM at Warwick's Tavern 17 Same place. Same time. One year later. AGM -- Friday, 30 January 2009 and Saturday, 31 January 2009 One thing about the Warwick -- they want us. We're back for 2009 AGM (Annual General Meeting) at 7 PM 30 January, 2009 at the Warwick Hotel, 1701 Locust Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103. We're dining from the menu. Individual bills are OK. Check out the menu via www.radisson.com/philadelphiapa. I've spoken to the Front Office Manager (Alex Marin) re overnight rates -- discounted rates. It depends how many are in the group. Let me know your preferences! Of course, there are many other places to stay. If you need help, contact me. But check out on-line venues first. Please. Please advise your attendance. How many? O'Hara readings will be held AM 31 January in lecture room at 1919 Chestnut Street (2 streets from Warwick). Each paper should be no longer than 1 hour (including Q & A). Let's try for three. Let me know. Richard