Appointment in Samarra - John O'Hara [108]
of the life of Gibbsville come together the gangster roadhouse element, the domestic middle-class element on a rare spree, the country-club set on a big party. Under the pressure of this crisis, each reveals its nature fully, and they all ring clear and true. This is the aspect of American life O Hara understands with all the intense interest of the outsider who at once scorns the insider and wants to become one. There is no other novel in American literature that is truer or more alive in these respects than is Appointment in Samarra. ARTHUR MIZENER Cornell University