Appointment in Samarra (O'Hara)

Book Reviews
[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.... He knows, and persuades us to believe, that life's deepest intentions may be expressed by the angle at which a hat is worn, the pattern of a necktie, the size of a monogram, the pitch of a voice, the turn of a phrase of slang, a gesture of courtesy and the way it is received."
Lionel Trilling - New York Times


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


Appointment in Samarra...was, and is, an almost perfect book—taut, vivid, tough-minded, and compassionate.
Brendan Gill - in Here at The New Yorker (p. 271)