ellisknox's review against another edition
3.0
O'Hara is hailed as one of the masters of the short story and, okay, he paints a good picture. But when all you are is a sketch artist, there's only so much I can admire and only so many sketches I can take at a sitting. I think maybe if I were a New York native, and if I were reading his stories the way they were meant to be read, every week or month in a magazine, then I might have had a different reaction.
The main thing here is that there's no character development. They're all vignettes. There's rarely a surprise or a moral. It's just a sketch. Masterfully done, with a fine eye for detail and an even finer eye for dialog, but most stories are less than ten pages and they don't go anywhere. I can picture him sitting in a cafe or a church or a courthouse. Something catches his eye. He jots a few notes, goes back to his hotel (of course I picture him living in a hotel) and bangs out another for Harpers or the New Yorker. I really did want to like him better, but I've given up.
The main thing here is that there's no character development. They're all vignettes. There's rarely a surprise or a moral. It's just a sketch. Masterfully done, with a fine eye for detail and an even finer eye for dialog, but most stories are less than ten pages and they don't go anywhere. I can picture him sitting in a cafe or a church or a courthouse. Something catches his eye. He jots a few notes, goes back to his hotel (of course I picture him living in a hotel) and bangs out another for Harpers or the New Yorker. I really did want to like him better, but I've given up.
invertible_hulk's review
3.0
O'Hara is an underappreciated, and oft-overlooked, part of great American literature.
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