Pal Joey -- John O'Hara

My interest in John O’Hara’s work continues. PAL JOEY is an early novel of his from 1940 that’s told in the form of letters from Joey, a struggling nightclub singer in the Midwest, to his friend Ted, a much more successful singer and bandleader. I was aware of PAL JOEY only as a movie musical I’ve never seen starring Frank Sinatra and didn’t know the film was based on an O’Hara novel until recently. It must have been quite a chore for the screenwriter to turn this book into a coherent screenplay, since there’s not much actual story to work with. Joey sings in various second-rate nightclubs, romances an assortment of beautiful young women (or “mice”, as he calls them), and is jealous of his friend Ted’s success. That’s about it for the plot.

But O’Hara’s work isn’t really strong on plot to start with. He concentrates on characterization and dialogue instead. PAL JOEY manages to be both funny and very dark at the same time. Joey is uneducated, as is evident from the misspellings, grammatical errors, and tortured sentence structures in the letters he writes, but he has more than enough lust, greed, and ambition to make up for it. His jealousy of his friend’s success comes through plainly, as does his unwillingness to take any of the blame for his failures, even though most of them result from losing his temper or trying to take advantage of someone. He’s about the most venal character you’re ever going to come across, which is probably just what O’Hara intended.

PAL JOEY is also short and moves right along, always a plus in my book. I enjoyed it, and it’s got me really curious about the film version. I’m going to have to hunt up a copy of the DVD and give it a try.

The Farmers Hotel -- John O'Hara

A lot of authors have used the old plot of having a group of strangers thrown together by circumstances and then seeing what happens among them. John O’Hara does it in a short novel from 1951 called THE FARMERS HOTEL. Set in a small town in Pennsylvania, the story finds a rich couple from Philadelphia who are married (but not to each other), a trio of small-time entertainers (a couple of strippers and their piano player), and a sullen truck driver who drinks too much all forced by a blizzard to stop at the hotel of the title, which, as it happens, has just reopened under new ownership. The middle-aged hotel owner, the cook, the black bellman/bartender (who has an adventurous history involving World War I and gangsters), and the local doctor are also on hand.

As usual with O’Hara, there’s lots of dialogue, most of it very well-written. The story gets darker as it goes on, and the ending is downright bleak. I gather from what I’ve read that this isn’t regarded as one of O’Hara’s better novels; in fact, some critics at the time called it his worst. I haven’t read enough of his work to make any judgments of that sort. But I can say that I enjoyed THE FARMERS HOTEL quite a bit, and it only makes me want to read more of O’Hara’s books.

John O'Hara's Hollywood

I haven’t read much of John O’Hara’s work. I remember reading his first novel, APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA, some years ago and enjoying it, and I’ve read a few of his short stories here and there. When I came across this collection of his novellas and short stories set in Hollywood, I decided to give it a try, and I’m glad I did because it’s a pretty good book.

O’Hara worked in Hollywood off and on for most of his career, working on original stories and screenplays for films, most of which were never produced. He was enough of an insider that the stories in this volume really ring true when it comes to the actors, producers, directors, writers, and agents of the studio system during the Twenties, Thirties, and Forties, which is the era in which most of the stories are set, even the ones that were written much later. He wrote great dialogue, too, and was very observant of people’s foibles and failings.

The knock I have on some of these stories is that nothing much happens in them, and no matter how slick the prose is, I want some plot to go along with it. But some of them -- “In a Grove”, “Yucca Knolls”, “James Francis and the Star”, and “Natica Jackson” -- are wonderful tales, alternating between wry humor, unexpected twists, and some of the bleakest situations this side of Jim Thompson and David Goodis. It also seems at times that O’Hara is a little too obsessed with the sex lives of his characters, but in morality plays like most of these stories are, I guess it’s difficult to avoid that.

One more complaint -- and this has nothing to do with the stories themselves -- is how poorly edited this volume is, with numerous typos and an introduction that credits THE LAST TYCOON to Budd Schulberg and WHAT MAKES SAMMY RUN to F. Scott Fitzgerald, when of course it’s the other way around. A fairly inconsequential mistake, but somebody should have caught it.

Overall, though, I enjoyed JOHN O’HARA’S HOLLYWOOD quite a bit, and it’s made me want to read more of O’Hara’s work. I even picked up a biography of him the other day, to learn more about his life. Don’t know when I’ll get around to reading it, but I’m confident that I will.