A review by christinecomito
Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara

4.0

I just read F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Other Side of Paradise, set in nearly the same time period and I have to say that I much prefer O'Hara's writing style. Fitzgerald's novel featured Amory Blaine whining and drinking his way through college and briefly after, meeting unsatisfactory girls. I never felt a kinship with the character. While I didn't especially like Julian and Caroline English in Appointment in Samarra, I quite enjoyed O'Hara's characterization of all the people in the town of Gibbsville and how they interacted with the Englishes. I was especially intrigued by the epigraph in the beginning about the servant who ran away from Baghdad to Samarra thinking he was avoiding death, while Death had been surprised to see him in Baghdad when he had an appointment with him in Samarra. Julian English's story is much like the servant's: everything he does still leads to his predestined conclusion.