Ten North Frederick

John O'Hara has often been compared to a more prolific, less drunk, F. Scott Fitzgerald, with the benefit of longevity. Ten North Frederick bears this out, and also reveals so much more about this little read (and sometimes denigrated) writer. Set in the fictional town of Gibbsville, Pennsylvania, Ten North Frederick charts the rise and fall of Joe Chapin, small town luminary and lawyer, aspiring, somewhat childishly, to become the President of the United States. In this novel O'Hara shows writers how to nail the essential elements of the social novel: slow, detailed character development, including long forays into their backgrounds. A keen knowledge of the political circumstances of the time. And a frank, and no doubt at that time scandalous, knowledge of sexual mores. All the elements fit into place, and in the end the reader is left with the impression that nothing had been left out. He shines a harsh light on every nook and cranny of a time, a place, a people, and reveals every nuance of the human venture.

As I read more and more O'Hara it is beginning to dawn on me that he is one of the pre-eminent American writers of the 20th Century. This book, in particular, looks at so many big themes across so many characters and storylines that it should be listed with the best novels of the century. Works by his better-known contemporary (but hardly peer) Fitzgerald are puny next to this writer's best stuff.