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Appointment in Samarra

3.84 of 5 stars 3.84 · rating details · 4,667 ratings · 280 reviews

O’Hara did for fictional Gibbsville, Pennsylvania, what Faulkner did for Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi: surveyed its social life and drew its psychic outlines. But he did it in utterly worldly terms, without Faulkner’s taste for mythic inference or the basso profundo of his prose. Julian English is a man who squanders what fate gave him. He lives on the right side of t...more

Paperback, 251 pages

Published July 8th 2003 by Vintage (first published 1934)

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Best Books of the Decade: 1930s

57th out of 312 books — 311 voters

Time Magazine's All-Time 100 Novels

78th out of 100 books — 314 voters

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Dec 28, 2012 Patrick McCoy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime-noir

I have heard a lot of good things about John O’Hara’s first and most popular novel, Appointment in Samarra. So I finally decided to read it. It was quite a revelation-a Fitzgerald-esque depiction of the 30s jazz age lifestyle complete with snappy dialogue, big parties, heavy drinking and other sorts of dissipation. There are bootleggers and gangsters among the upwardly mobile who see this way of life as an entitlement. It is essentially the chronicle of a marriage in decline between the self-des...more

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Oct 13, 2010 Jake rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: novel

On the back of this novel, Hemingway offered the following blurb: "if you want to read a book by a man who knows exactly what he is writing about and has written it marvelously well, read Appointment in Samarra." Unfortunately, the subject John O'Hara knows so much about, and about which he does occasionally pen very beautiful pages, is the social life of the country club set in a little backwater city in central Pennsylvania. The novel takes place in 1930, but apart from a few passing reference...more

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Apr 24, 2007 Rolls rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is on The Modern Libraries Top 100 Novels? I can see no reason why. It's a good book - but top 100? Come on! This should be like # 552 on a list of the 1000 best novels.

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Jul 25, 2011 Bryan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 100-all-time-novels

A book I knew nothing about, from 1934, made for a quick read this weekend, and a damn good one at that. Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara is exactly my type of book; focusing onrealistic, interesting characters. As I inch closer to the halfway mark of this list, I'm finally starting to realize what type of books I enjoy reading.

Set in the fictional Pennsylvania town of Gibbsville, Appointment in Samarra follows the self-destruction of one Julian English, over three daysat Christmas, 1930. A...more

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May 14, 2013 Beth rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, classics

It is 1930's in Pennsylvania, United States. An era of financial depression for most people. Also an era of "old-fashioned" cultural mores and expectations being challenged on a regular basis. Speakeasies. The Mob. Cadillacs. Liquor. Dance cards. Racial and religious tensions. In the wealthy upper echelon of society (a.k.a. the country club set), socializing was practically a full time job and keeping up appearances was integral to one's success. Men were men, and women, who were supposed to "k...more

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Apr 20, 2013 Watchingthewords rated it 2 of 5 stars

Appointment in Samarra tells the story of the downfall of Julian English over the course of three short days during Christmas in 1930. Julian seems to have it all – he lives on the right street, owns a Cadillac dealership, is a member of the country club, has a beautiful wife, the right kind of friends – when he throws it all away by making a series of ridiculously awful choices (don’t throw a drink in the face of the guy who you owe $20k, don’t sleep with the mob boss’s mistress, don’t beat up...more

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Feb 05, 2013 Smcleish rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Originally published on my blog here in August 2003.

Set in an American small town during the Depression, Appointment in Samarra is the story of a man who takes to drink and then kills himself after a social faux pas. It was hailed as a great novel by Ernest Hemingway no less when it first appeared (though his praise was in part an attack on Sinclair Lewis, who had described it as obscene). From such a high, O'Hara's reputation could only dwindle, especially as he ended up as an author who outliv...more Originally published on my blog here in August 2003.

Set in an American small town during the Depression, Appointment in Samarra is the story of a man who takes to drink and then kills himself after a social faux pas. It was hailed as a great novel by Ernest Hemingway no less when it first appeared (though his praise was in part an attack on Sinclair Lewis, who had described it as obscene). From such a high, O'Hara's reputation could only dwindle, especially as he ended up as an author who outlived his talent. Even so, Appointment in Samarra made it into the Modern Library's list of the hundred greatest English language novels of the twentieth century.

One interesting thing about this novel is the naive style in which it is written. O'Hara is unwilling to introduce a character without telling the reader a great deal about them and their history (something that would-be authors are often warned not to do). In places this is irritating, but O'Hara usually manages to make it fascinating. These little portraits can be quite barbed, as when he says of the local doctor that "some of his patients even lived".

The central character, fairly closely based on parts of O'Hara's own early life, is massively important in this novel. Julian English begins as an insider, a rich young man who spends much of his time meeting other rich young people at exclusive clubs in and around his home town. He gives way to a drunken impulse (throwing his drink in the face of a man he doesn't like very much) and becomes an outsider, unable even really to see why he is no longer accepted. (His crime may seem trivial, but the man he attackes is someone to whom he owes a large sum of money, a particularly strong tie in the Depression, and is a pillar of the town's Catholic community while English is a Protestant, leading others to assume sectarian motives for the attack.) It is one of the strengths of Appointment in Samarra that this slight difference in status is so clearly portrayed.

While this all makes for an interesting read, it hardly amounts to sufficient reason to put Appointment in Samarra in the top hundred novels. What is unusual about it for its date is its sympathetic portrayal of feminine sexuality in the person of Julian's wife. D.H. Lawrence is famous for having introduced the woman as an openly sexual being into literature, but the women I know who have talked about this have told me that he doesn't really describe what, say, a female orgasm feels like; his portrayal is more a masculine idea of what it should be like. It seems to me that O'Hara is more believable in what he says, even if this is the aspect of the novel which was attacked as obscene. (I obviously can't be sure, as I have never experienced sex as a woman!)

The title of the novel deserves some comment. There is a story which I thought was in the Arabian Nights (though my dictionary of quotations attributes it to W. Somerset Maugham). A man in Baghdad met Death in the marketplace, a sure omen of his death. Although he saw that Death looked surprised, the terrified man leapt on his horse and galloped to Samarra. But there Death took his soul - no one can cheat death. The point of this little story is the reason for Death's surprise - it was because he met the man in Baghdad when he had an appointment with him for the next day in distant Samarra.(less)

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Nov 26, 2012 Thenewdirectionoftime rated it 4 of 5 stars

Appointment in Samarra is a neglected masterpiece written a little more than eight decades ago and it is a book that ought not to be neglected. Although the process of rehabilitating it, putting it on “best of” lists or course lists or finding some celebrity to champion it, would inevitably result in some other book being forced into obscurity. Such is the tension we are faced with in the Library of Babel, in which there is a myriad of texts and a finite supply of time. You could do far worse to...more Appointment in Samarra is a neglected masterpiece written a little more than eight decades ago and it is a book that ought not to be neglected. Although the process of rehabilitating it, putting it on “best of” lists or course lists or finding some celebrity to champion it, would inevitably result in some other book being forced into obscurity. Such is the tension we are faced with in the Library of Babel, in which there is a myriad of texts and a finite supply of time. You could do far worse to squandering your time with Appointment in Samarra.

The anti-hero of the book is Julian English (Nota Bene: that we are now well into the period of literature – probably a result of WWI- where anti-heroes have become the norm. There is a bona fide war hero in the book, but his name is Froggy and he has one arm. This alone should say something about the mentality of the period towards what would otherwise be a figure of veneration). Throughout the reading of this book it is hard not to imagine Julian English looking like Julian Assange, currently a hostage of the English. This is one of those unintended vagaries of history that colour a book. In reality, or at least the reality that was the first phase of the novel, it is possible that O’Hara was alluding to Julius Caesar, or Julian the Apostate. If not directly, then indirectly evoking the regalia associated with the name the gens Julia has lent to history.

The main narrative of the book charts the final days of Julian English’s life. He goes through a sort of negative nativity beginning on Christmas day and ending about three days later. This time element is important: he even goes so far as to smash the clock in the car where he offs himself so there won’t be any speculation about just when he made his final exit. Since this is a short period of time to fill two hundred pages O’Hara has got to find cogent subject manner. One matter he isn’t too concerned with is getting deeply into the consciousness of his subjects. Even Julian’s real reasons for suicide have to be inferred from indirect evidence. Instead, O’Hara employs the technique of flashback. We see glimpses of Julian’s childhood, his wife Caroline’s past, and different episodes in the history of people in the town like Al Grecco and Julian’s father.

The sections of the book that deal directly with English and with his wife Caroline only comprise a longish story. The reader follows Julian engaging in some bad, scotch-fuelled behavior. He throws a drink at a rich and influential member of the town’s nouveau riche; he is inexcusably cruel to his servant and wife; he seduces a gangster’s mistress. At last Julian English beats up a one-armed man in a comic scene in the closing pages of the book. But the logic of these events needs to be worked out by focusing in on the lives of the people around Julian. Julian’s life only makes sense in the selective analysis of the Pennsylvania town’s set and setting. This project continues even after his death when we see the reaction of various people to his demise, of his father concerned more than anything with the family’s reputation, of his wife who is at least concerned with herself.

The book succeeds in the two criteria that make a literary text worth attending to: what O’Hara has to say is extremely engaging, and he has a finely musical way of employing language to tell his story. Finally, in comparison to other novels, this book has some unique approaches to getting the story told. One of O’Hara’s stylistic methods is to keep a sense of motion going throughout the story: analogous to the cars the characters are whipping around in, the story hopscotches in time & place to varying figures of note (or of insignificance) to Gibbsville, PA society. Another interesting move that O’Hara made was near the end of the novel. The scene has Julian English at work. He tried unsuccessfully to immerse himself in his work, to concentrate on facts and figures related to the running of his Cadillac dealership. He briefly goes to the washroom, sitting on the toilet with his gun in his mouth. We think this is a whim of his, not realizing that he has a better idea for his demise. After he goes back to his desk and starts work again, the sentence suddenly breaks off. The story picks up with what is going on in his wife Catherine’s mind. This abrupt, sentence breaking change of scenery is a bold move, and timed just right add up to a compelling aesthetic whole.

Style aside, what does O’Hara have to say? It’s very clear from the beginning of the book that he has a detailed understanding of life in a provincial Pennsylvanian town called “Gibbsville” – modeled after his own town. He wants to show the reader precisely what motivates, preoccupies, angers, delights and deludes the occupants of his quasi-fictional locale – Gibbsville takes its place around other true to life renderings like Faulkner’s Yokonapatawpha County, and Hardy’s Wessex. O’Hara’s approach is to zero in on the lives of a variety of representative figures. These include characters from the lumpenproletariat such as Al Grecco and his bootlegger, gangster boss Ed Charney. Arguably, the episodes that deal with Grecco, especially the account of how he got that name, could stand alone as a short story that would be formidable by itself, and O’Hara was a writer for The New Yorker during the period when he was incensed at one of their reviewers. There are other characters in the book that emerge for a minute treatment, a treatment that apparently has no bearing on the main narrative itself. There is an account of the short life of one of Caroline’s former boyfriends, an officer from England who had been injured and then later died of gangrene.

The method of story-telling that O’Hara employs is risky. There is always the chance that we won’t care about the subject of a given digression. In Appointment in Samarra, however, that is never the case. All of the hopscotching around to different people and places does develop the novel thematically. Beyond a good work of craftsmanship, the novel’s themes also elevate its place in the canon of literature.

Without moralizing in the vein of John Steinbeck, it is very clear that we are given the vision of a society in which things have gone wrong. This idea comes through in the incidents of the book rather than through a moral center acting as the delivery person for the author’s homily. None of the characters in this book are likeable. They constantly misunderstand each other. Even the man who Julian loathed and assaulted with a glass of scotch says after Julian’s suicide that he believed Julian always liked him! What kind of world is it, the book thus asks indirectly, in which we set ourselves up for this kind of alienating experience. The country club that Julian belongs to is structured in such a way that exclusion, hurt feelings, social climbing and grudges are the natural result. Prohibition has turned drinking into an epidemic. Even the new addition to American social life, the automobile, conspires to undermine that social life in a variety of ways. Most notably Julian asphyxiates himself behind the wheel of his Cadillac with the garage sealed and a bottle of scotch in hand- a case of which had been delivered by Al Grecco that afternoon.)

To locate Appointment in Samarra alongside a classical parallel, it could be conceivably placed with The Satires of Juvenal. Many of the character types would be familiar to him. The intent of the book (if not the actual structure of the verse) is iambic in the sense that it uses language to target social affectations and pretensions. Beyond just this mission as a kind of muck-raking prose write, O’Hara is capable of insights even if he isn’t a great psychologist. It is worth ending with this passage as evidence:

“Our story never ends.

You pull the pin out of a hand grenade, and in a few seconds it explodes and men in a small area get killed and wounded. That makes bodies to be buried, hurt men to be treated. It makes widows and fatherless children and bereaved parents. It means pension machinery, and it makes for pacifism in some and for lasting hatred in others…”

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Jul 16, 2012 David rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Appointment in Samarra John O’Hara (1934) #22

February 11, 2012

I had no Idea what to expect of this novel, having never heard of it, or it’s author. These books are getting rather hard to find, as I am getting quite far down on the list, so when I found three in one day at Good Books in the Woods, I was pretty stoked. I picked this one to read first because in the Prior book I had been reading (a historical fiction of Elizabeth I) one of the characters had made reference to the parable from whic...more Appointment in Samarra John O’Hara (1934) #22

February 11, 2012

I had no Idea what to expect of this novel, having never heard of it, or it’s author. These books are getting rather hard to find, as I am getting quite far down on the list, so when I found three in one day at Good Books in the Woods, I was pretty stoked. I picked this one to read first because in the Prior book I had been reading (a historical fiction of Elizabeth I) one of the characters had made reference to the parable from which this book takes its name. Book omens. The parable is found on the first page of the book, but credits it to a play by Somerset Maugham. Curious.

This novel is a story of an upper middle class hip “set” of an obscure town in Pennsylvania in 1930. Julian English is at the center of this story, and the novel pretty much follows his self-ruin and eventual suicide, taking place over the last 48 hours of his life. He doesn’t seem that bad of a guy by 1930’s standards, but a string of self-inflicted debacles, coupled with copious amounts of alcohol and lack of good judgment bring him to his demise.
I don’t really get why this novel is in this list at all. It is not especially poorly written, but I would never put this on the list of the best novels of the 20th century. By this point, though, I have pretty much come to the conclusion that it’s not my lack of understanding of some of these books and how they were placed on the list, but rather that the panel

1. Preferred or read MUCH different literature than I
2. Had some vested interest in putting some of these books on the list
3. Were retarded
4. Hold some skewed view of what great literature is

At best, this is an interesting read about the hip set of small-town 1930’s. It was kind of neat to see the unflinching somewhat brutal attitude towards women, Jews and booze. 1930 was definitely not a time of great political correctness. I couldn’t shake the feeling, though that this was just another novel that my grandma would have read in her 20’s, and not have been especially moved. The technique at times, when leaving the kind of “best-seller” conversational mold, seemed like the author was poorly trying to mimic some literary “greatness” by repeating phrases over and over again, or doing some light airy stream of consciousness (which I’m not really a fan of anyway).

5 (less)

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Apr 21, 2012 Ensiform rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

Told from a variety of viewpoints and through flashbacks, this often grim novel of manners centers on one Julian English, the owner of a Cadillac dealership, and his fall from society’s good graces. After drunkenly flinging a drink in the face of Harry Reilly at a party, Julian is rather unsettled to find that this act has deeper consequences than he realized. Reilly is well-liked, free with his money, was once a suitor of Julian’s wife before she married him, and has lent Julian himself a large...more

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Apr 01, 2012 Sophie Dusting rated it 3 of 5 stars

To clear up one thing first of all, the reason why I chose this book was due to a recommendation on a random website that stated it was a book for graduated students to read as to discourage them from continuing the student way of life, aka seeing the consequences of alcoholism. I'm glad I decided to read it - what a book. It is truly moving and incredibly thought-provoking.

The plot is quite similar to the Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald (another fantastic novel) in that it is about a social elite...more To clear up one thing first of all, the reason why I chose this book was due to a recommendation on a random website that stated it was a book for graduated students to read as to discourage them from continuing the student way of life, aka seeing the consequences of alcoholism. I'm glad I decided to read it - what a book. It is truly moving and incredibly thought-provoking.

The plot is quite similar to the Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald (another fantastic novel) in that it is about a social elites fall from grace and, to quote the book, how "for the time being you are the hero or the villain of the thing that is the uppermost in the minds of your friends and acquaintances," (Pg. 93). As a reader you watch how his life unravels, from a dispute with his wife over his behaviour when drunk that leads to him cheating and an eventual divorce, to the arguments with various friends whom side with Harry and betray him, to the loss of business and disrespect of his associates. All this happening over the course of a week. It was very clever, the interconnecting consequences from just the one major scene - it's an intelligent book.

The language used and indeed some of the behaviour is shockingly modern when considering the time the piece is set and written, in the 1930s. To highlight just one quote; "Well, when I was Teddy's age I had four girls knocked up," (Pg. 32). I'm sorry but I was not expecting the language to be so contemporary - it's part of the reason why I loved it. The best scene is when Julian is drunk and he's trying to hold a conversation with his peers - it's like a 10 page script from one of my nights out. It was wonderfully funny.

A criticism is that, as with Ian McEwan in Atonement , the author use description far too much. He gives a 10 page biography for each character. Yes, it adds to the environment and setting but it distracts from the plot and atmosphere. Some bits really were not relevant and it just slowed everything down. That said the dialogue and conversation between characters is sheer brilliance; it's witty, observant, quick and just a joy to read.

Perhaps the greatest point in the book was how neither Harry nor Julian cared much about 'the drink in the face action' but everyone else makes it the biggest event in whole town. It seems so superficial and elaborated but it is the world in which the characters live. Indeed, the community is so close-knit that the drink incident spreads rapidly with many having their own idea as to the reason why; was it because Julian doesn't like the Irish Catholics, the fact the wife may of had an affair with Harry and so on. Even I felt like saying keep your nose out.

I'm unsure whether the themes and ideas are new, certainly perhaps when they were written they may well have been. That said it is a theme which has been played with great dignity and heart. The main character Julian, I had a rollacoaster with. Sometimes I felt real empathy and really understood where he came from and other times his attitude and behaviour is very obnoxious and I didn't like him. Caroline, his unfortunate wife, I had great sympathy for her situation. Trapped in a life she didn't want.

One major warning with this book is the author is very racist, using the N word quite a few times and it is also anti-Semitic. It make it difficult to read and just because it is set or written in that period is no excuse. Thus I will forewarn readers about that.

Overall, it was a beautiful bitter sweet, comic -tragedy of a life falling apart. Well worth a read - 3.5*

To read more, visit my blog: http://verdictbookreviews.blogspot.co...(less)

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Jul 22, 2011 Patty rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, fiction, family, great-depression, marriage, sucide, friendship, pennsylvania, classic-literature, modern-literature

John O'Hara is an author that I have never read. At least, none of his novels. I remember regularly reshelving his fiction when I was a page in the late 60's, but I wasn't the slightest bit interested in what he had to say.

A volume of three of his novels crossed my path, so I decided it would accompany me to the beach. This is the first in the volume. I am both intrigued and baffled.

The storyline was quite interesting. The setting - early part of the Depression in middle America - might as well...more

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Jun 21, 2011 David Lentz rated it 5 of 5 stars

O'Hara's distinctive literary voice is both unique and disarming. For the first hundred pages I was unsure that O'Hara was even a competent writer, nevermind author of one of the century's great novels. His narrative technique and dialogue both are steeped in the jargon of his heyday, Prohibition Era, small town America. But O'Hara deals with big themes and the idiom of his day becomes secondary. He seems to want to take on big questions: why is the moth so driven to the flame? Why do we so will...more

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May 30, 2011 Matt rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a book I was assigned in college and then promptly failed to read-- honestly, this happened less often than you'd think, but this was one of those that slipped through the cracks, so until I started reading this two weeks ago, I really did think Julian English had lunch plans in the Middle East! I think I must've got it crossed, somehow, with Under the Volcano? It's hard to say.

At any rate, I read Butterfield 8 earlier this year and was totally blown away, so when I saw a chance to get t...more This is a book I was assigned in college and then promptly failed to read-- honestly, this happened less often than you'd think, but this was one of those that slipped through the cracks, so until I started reading this two weeks ago, I really did think Julian English had lunch plans in the Middle East! I think I must've got it crossed, somehow, with Under the Volcano? It's hard to say.

At any rate, I read Butterfield 8 earlier this year and was totally blown away, so when I saw a chance to get this book, I snapped it up and was excited to read it. To me, at least, it's not as good a book as Butterfield-- it feels more like an authorially driven book, from the opening epigraph which pretty much gives it away to the end, and English didn't grab me as a character the way the woman at the center of the other book did; I felt like English was primarily meant to be a stand-in for some people that O'Hara knew and wanted to talk about, and that he failed to come to life as a real character instead of an exemplar or stand-in.

Which is not to say there aren't incredibly lovely things here-- there are these inserts, usually in the form of the long flashbacks that are supposed to explain that characters and the setting that I think are masterful-- interesting, insightful, and sharp, they remind me in places of similar moves in Winesburg, OH, though here I think they are a little less inflected with colloquialisms, to good or bad effect. But it's bracing, in some ways, to see a writer who really did make an effort to understand the world his characters spring from-- it feels like an artistic strategy that is so far away from the non-intrusive style of most "realist" writers today that you kind of want to applaud when you see it. I don't know-- I wanted to applaud, but it's just as likely if I had read this book when it was assigned and I was 19, these sections would've made me want to throw the book across the room and holler, in the words of my dad, "like fun it is!"

At any rate, I'm not that reader anymore, and really enjoyed a lot of this, but I felt, like I sometimes do, that the character and story at the center of it wasn't up to the level of the best stuff here. (less)

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Jan 14, 2011 Jim Ament rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

From my blog: http://www.jamesrament.com/book-revie...

Appointment in Samarra – by John O’Hara, 1934

It’s been perhaps 40 years since I’ve even thought about John O’Hara’s books let alone read him. I had never read this one, but in an act of pure spontaneity, I picked up a ratty old copy at the city library while browsing through the stacks. Oh, what joys we can find purely by accident!

This one apparently became an instant best seller in 1934 but not necessarily a critical success. Hemingway prais...more

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Oct 04, 2010 Rita marked it as to-read

Goodreads; In December 1930, just before Christmas, the Gibbsville social circuit is electrified with parties and dances, where the music plays late into the night and the liquor flows freely. At the center of the social elite stand Julian and Caroline English—the envy of friends and strangers alike. But in one rash moment born inside a highball glass, Julian breaks with polite society and begins a rapid descent toward self-destruction. Appointment in Samarra brilliantly captures the personal po...more

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Dec 19, 2009 Chad rated it 3 of 5 stars

It is surprisingly enjoyable to read a novel about places you have been (Reading, Harrisburg, Allentown, Philadelphia), events you have attended (the annual Lehigh-Lafayette football game), and in general the culture in which you have lived. Appointment in Samarra is a bit like The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter in that the characters and relationships matter much more than the plot, even though three major events within 48 hours propel the book. If this were solely a book about Julian’s self destruct...more

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Jun 09, 2009 Jon rated it 4 of 5 stars

How one act of indulgence/wish fulfillment demonstrates the tenuousness of some peoples' lives. Julian Engish, a man who has a few problems, but is generally successful (especially considering the economic times in which he lived!) gives in to a suppressed desire, acting on it, and it leads him down an increasingly tormented path. He may not be a sympathetic character, but he is, at times, understandable and also by a certain stage pathetic enough to feel sorry for. We've all done something we r...more

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May 22, 2013 Wil rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book was recommended somewhere as within the same 'world' as The Great Gatsby. Similar themes are present around early middle age angst, lots of boozing, and wealth and its impacts on happiness. Much like Gatsby, the plot serves more as a river to move the characters along, but it's in the background and you are only aware of its quiet murmuring from time to time. The focus is on the characters, who are for the most part deep, tortured and memorable. If you are the kind of person who loves...more

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Oct 21, 2011 Evan Brown rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. The decline and fall of Julian English. Merry Christmas!

This was my first experience with John O’Hara and it was a good one. This book came highly recommended to me by my father who read it some years ago. I admittedly did not know what to expect based on the title. I figured somebody made a dinner date in Iraq; sort of like when I picked up “Catcher in the Rye” as a teenager thinking it was going to be like “Field of Dreams.” The cover of my edition shows the silhouette of a wasted looking dude...more The decline and fall of Julian English. Merry Christmas!

This was my first experience with John O’Hara and it was a good one. This book came highly recommended to me by my father who read it some years ago. I admittedly did not know what to expect based on the title. I figured somebody made a dinner date in Iraq; sort of like when I picked up “Catcher in the Rye” as a teenager thinking it was going to be like “Field of Dreams.” The cover of my edition shows the silhouette of a wasted looking dude slumped in the passenger seat of a Cadillac. That is what I should have been expecting.

The story surrounds a Depression era mining town, Gibbsville, during Christmas. It took a good 50 pages or so before I began to pick up on the voice, but I very much enjoy O’Hara’s Fitzgerald-esque high society and narration, Hemingway-tinged dialogue and Maughm-ish character development (all three authors are mentioned in the novel). The treatment of the bootlegging underworld and the supposition of impending doom also added a bit of a noir feel. O’Hara’s hybrid style is dynamic and incredibly readable.

The one thing that I did have a problem with was the Austen-like introduction to 3,000 characters in the second chapter. I cannot stand it when I’m bombarded with a plethora of characters before I’ve gotten my narrative bearings. 200 pages into the novel I’m asking myself, “Who the hell is Froggy Ogden??” I was thinking that this might translate well into film (because I’m better with faces than names) and I learned in a recent visit to imdb.com that a film is in the works.
Though Julian English isn’t much of a sympathetic character because of his alcoholism, lechery and treatment of his wife, Caroline, my saucy self could empathize with him to an extent. Everybody’s embarrassed themselves with drink at one point or another. It is my recommendation to never get sideways enough to throw a high ball in the face of somebody who has half the town in his pocket, or play hide-the-sausage with the mistress of a mob boss.

Julian English, a former ivy leaguer and promising young businessman, learns that a single, seemingly innocuous party foul can lead to a treacherous ripple effect of social degeneration. As the novel progresses, O’Hara illustrates this ironically with Julian’s family and country club friends referring to him affectionately as “Ju” in a town brimming with anti-Semitism. In just under three days, Julian English ostracizes himself entirely and destroys his marriage.

I'll be ordering a copy of "BUtterfield 8" the next time I'm on amazon.(less)

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Feb 23, 2008 Margit rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Alison and Nicky

Appointment in Samarra is an American Classic by John O'Hara. He describes the life of a young man in small town America before the Depression who has it all. When he makes a big mistake on Christmas his downward spiral is aided by people and events and shows that it is rather difficult to evade one's fate. This is also implied by the Arabian parable in the beginning of the book.
The book is very well written and , although it is depressing, I enjoyed it very much.

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Oct 12, 2012 Luciabo rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: romanzo

Siamo in una piccola città della Pennsylvania negli anni ‘30 e Julian English, venditore di auto Cadillac, ci viene presentato come un personaggio ben inserito e quasi in dirittura d’arrivo per raggiungere velocemente e con successo il traguardo del riconoscimento come appartenente a buon diritto al circolo ristretto dei ricchi benpensanti locali. Ma la sciagura irreparabile incombe. La vigilia di Natale alla presenza dei notabili della cittadina fa un gesto inqualificabile e imperdonabile: rove...more

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Mar 29, 2010 Mark rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: time-100

The year is 1930 and the characters are the high society of a Pennsylvania coal-mining town (a different kind of coal than what they get out of Pittsburgh, as everyone takes pain to note). Even as the Great Depression has hit, these are the well-to-do who've still got their servants, still got their expensive country club dinners and dances, and so on and so forth. It's a predictably cliquish atmosphere, petty and peevish, where grudges come and go, people pretend to like one another, news sprea...more

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Nov 08, 2010 Linda rated it 4 of 5 stars

"He was drunk, but he was Julian, drunk or not, and that was more than anyone else was. That was what everyone else was not. He was like someone who had died in the war, some young officer in an overseas cap and a Sam Browne belt and one of those tunics that button up to the neck but you can't see the buttons, and an aviator's wings on the breast where the pocket ought to be, and polished high lace boots with a little mud on the soles, and a cigarette in one hand and his arm around an American i...more

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May 16, 2013 Literary rated it 2 of 5 stars

Mandy's Review:

I feel like there's something wrong with me. Why? Because I've just read a classic and did not find much to like about it. And can someone please explain where the title came from? Not once in the book (unless I missed it) does it mention Samarra ... which is a city in Iraq, by the way. Nobody in this book travels to Iraq nor do they have an appointment there.

There are rave review blurbs by John Updike and Ernest Hemingway and I'm wondering if they read the same book I did. It's n...more

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Jan 03, 2013 Will rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"He thought of these things. Harry must have changed since then, become obnoxious or something. Julian reasoned that he could not have asked the Harry he now knew to invest so much money in the business. Well, maybe the winter had something to do with it. You went to the Gibbsville Club for lunch; Harry was there. You went to the country club to play squash on Whit Hofman's private court, and Harry was around. You went to the Saturday night drinking parties, and there was Harry; inescapable, eve...more

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Apr 05, 2011 Brian rated it 4 of 5 stars

Apparently John O'Hara knew of what he wrote. Julian English's life spirals out of control in the 48 hours after a impetuous act of drunken disdain at the Christmas party at a small town country club in Pennsylvania. This is a superbly drawn character study. English is selfish, egotistical, drunk, childish and manipulative; but O'Hara makes us care deeply about him and his fate.

The novel blends high comedy in its depiction of the social world of small-town Gibbsville with an almost suffocating s...more

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Nov 22, 2010 Veronica rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Veronica by: Modern Library's 100 Best Novels

While enjoying Appointment in Samarra, I had the feeling I was watching a movie on TCM. The descriptives gave it the 30′s feel and the lingo made it easy to picture the characters carrying on. And what a multitude of characters are found!

Julian English is the main character who manages to alienate his wife, friends, co-workers, investors and more in self-destructive behavior that has only one outcome, as implied by the title.

Published in 1934, the novel is set in the fictional Gibbsville, Pennsy...more

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May 25, 2013 Mary Billinghurst rated it 4 of 5 stars

I have decided to read the books that inspired Will Schwalbe's The End of Your Life Book Club. Appointment in Samarra is the second chapter's title. Although I was previously unfamiliar with the novel and its author, John O'Hara, I ordered it from my local library. I am glad I did! It was a fascinating read, an intricate study of the white collar world in small town Pennsylvania.

This is a novel unlike anything I have read before. O'Hara's main character, Julian English, strikes me a extremely tr...more

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Jul 17, 2011 Sharyl rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011-reads

"Appointment in Samarra", by John O'Hara, is the telling of how Julian English's life spirals out of his control in three days. On the first day, he throws a drink in the face of Harry Reilly, a man to whom he owes money. On the second day, he is openly unfaithful to his wife Caroline with the mistress of a gangster who has been good for English's Cadillac business. And finally, on the third, he gets into a very bad altercation at an eating club. He is drunk almost constantly during this time, w...more "Appointment in Samarra", by John O'Hara, is the telling of how Julian English's life spirals out of his control in three days. On the first day, he throws a drink in the face of Harry Reilly, a man to whom he owes money. On the second day, he is openly unfaithful to his wife Caroline with the mistress of a gangster who has been good for English's Cadillac business. And finally, on the third, he gets into a very bad altercation at an eating club. He is drunk almost constantly during this time, which happens to be Christmas and the two days afterwards.

At the end of the story, I did not feel that any of his problems had to be the end of the world--given that he straighten up and fly straight--but Julian English is a depressed person and obviously a self-destructive one who has suicidal thoughts three times in this story before acting on it. And one part of his life that was probably irreparably damaged was his marriage; Caroline was dreadfully unhappy, and I got the feeling that she was finished with him.

I will interject my perception that the three days, three acts, and three suicidal thoughts in this story do seem to constitute a trinity theme, which may be a stylistic echo of Julian's discomfort with the Catholic community, of which Harry Reilly is member.

O'Hara prefaces his story with W. Sommerset Maugham's Death Speaks to very good effect. The reader knows that Julian English is fated to die and will not escape that fate. As Julian's father, Dr. William English, pronounces his son dead, he thinks of his own father. Julian's grandfather had also lead a destructive life that ended by his own hand, and so Dr. English is resigned to the belief that the suicide gene had jumped a generation, that this was Julian's time to die.

Meanwhile, other people react with surprise. Harry Reilly is astonished, and acknowledges that he knew Julian liked him. "He wouldn't borrow a nickel from me if he didn't like me." And later, "...I wonder what in God's name would make him do a thing like that?" Of course, we know that Reilly was plenty angry with English about the drink, which gave him a black eye, but this is an example of how some of Julian English's perceptions are wildly exaggerated. Tragically, it is this drunken insult to Reilly that sets him in downward motion, because he truly believes that Reilly is going to get back at him in some way that will ruin his livelihood. Julian's wife Caroline is shocked, traumatized, and aggrieved. This is not the ending she foresaw, but I got the feeling that she would eventually pick up the pieces and go on. It is impossible to escape the thought that, in the long run, Julian's suicide might have made her life easier.

"Appointmentin Samarra" is also a window into the historically fascinating time of prohibition, including the prejudices and social mores of that time, and is also of special interest to those familiar with the Lehigh Valley, in Pennsylvania. John O'Hara wrote his novel in an appealing third person narrative style with dialogue that seems very natural. But then, O'Hara knew the time and place very well, having been born in Pottsville, Pennsylvania in 1905.

This was a good read.(less)

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About John O'Hara

John Henry O'Hara was an American writer born in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. He initially became known for his short stories and later became a best-selling novelist whose works include Appointment in Samarra and BUtterfield 8. He was particularly known for an uncannily accurate ear for dialogue. O'Hara was a keen observer of social status and class differences, and wrote frequently about the social...more

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“When Caroline Walker fell in love with Julian English she was a little tired of him. That was in the summer of 1926, one of the most unimportant years in the history of the United States, and the year in which Caroline Walker was sure her life had reached a pinnacle of uselessness.” — 3 people liked it

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