Overview

"Appointment in Samarra" is a fast-paced, blackly comic depiction of the rapid decline and fall of Julian English. English is part of the social elite of his 1930s American hometown but from the moment he impetuously throws a cocktail in the face of one of his powerful business associates his life begins to spiral out of control - taking his loving but troubled marriage with it.

Review

“Exceptionally brilliant.” —*New York Herald Tribune

“[O'Hara] is the only American writer to whom America presents itself as a social scene in the way it once presented itself to Henry James, or France to Proust.” —Lionel Trilling, The New York Times

“Dramatic . . . exciting . . . vivid and written at high speed . . . accurate and often penetrating.” —The Nation

“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.*” —Ernest Hemingway

From the Back Cover

“Exceptionally brilliant.” —*New York Herald Tribune

“[O'Hara] is the only American writer to whom America presents itself as a social scene in the way it once presented itself to Henry James, or France to Proust.” —Lionel Trilling, The New York Times

“Dramatic . . . exciting . . . vivid and written at high speed . . . accurate and often penetrating.” —The Nation

“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.*” —Ernest Hemingway