The Ewings

by John O'Hara

Family life and marriage around 1915.

Genres: Fiction, Novels

310 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

American writer John Henry O'Hara contributed short stories to the New Yorker and wrote novels, such as BUtterfield 8 (1935) and Ten North Frederick (1955).

Best-selling works of John Henry O'Hara include Appointment in Samarra . People particularly knew him for an uncannily accurate ear for dialogue. O'Hara, a keen observer of social status and class differences, wrote frequently about the socially ambitious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_O&#...

Reviews

[Maggie Koger · Rating 5 out of 5]

How the upper-middle class lived in 1913 as the war affected business. So instructive in the way the profit motive was taken for granted. Judging the worth of a man hinged on his ability to make money. Thus the manufacture of poison gas was simply taken as a distasteful necessity to win the war, but hardly a good investment since the war was to end soon.

Kirkus Reviews:

Little which can possibly pass for a story; there are the same heart-and-soulless women in warmer bodies; and the double-breasted suited men who go on to success via the right fraternity and the right country club.

This takes place back in 1913, extending through World War I as based in Cleveland, Ohio. All of it is clocked with the precision of a chronometer. Do you remember when you didn't go "all the way" if you were a "nice girl."?

I sure do. Yep. O'Hara got it right.

[Franziska Self Fisken · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this novel written in the 1970's about The Ewings and their life in provincial America in the 1910's.
It seemed a convincing portrait of the lives of rich busy business men and their leisurely and often unfulfilled wives in those times.

[Denise Rawling · Rating 3 out of 5]

Involved and intricate family story in typical O’Hara vein looking at small town before WWI- social structures and sex lives all at once with a 1970s frankness. His last book I believe - so three stars because it is O’Hara And he can do write but not his best by a way.

[Andrew · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dumb. Thesis of this book appears to be “people in the past had sex, including sometimes homosexually”. Really not much plot worth relating