So who WAS that girl climbing the flagpole?

“There is a minor incident [in “Appointment in Samarra,” 1934] of a girl climbing a flagpole at a country club. At the time I wrote that, it was my invention, but after the book was published, I learned that a girl had climbed a flagpole at a country club in North Carolina, and another girl had climbed a flagpole at a country club in Ohio. So Dayton people and Charlotte people thought I was writing under a phony name and was a former resident of Dayton and Charlotte.”

— John O’Hara, reflecting on the challenge of writing pure fiction

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *