From O'Hara's over 400 pieces of short fiction MacShane (author of a far-from-flattering O'Hara biography, 1980) has chosen 25 representative stories and novellas--the majority of which were originally published in The New Yorker. From the Thirties come eleven stories, most of them very short--including one of the "Pal Joey" letters that later became the Rodgers/Hart/O'Hara musical. (The one longer piece is the title story from O'Hara's first collection, The Doctor's Son and Other Stories,) After three very brief items from the 1940s comes the long 1960 story "Imagine Kissing Pete"--and in terms of space the selection is strongly given over to O'Hara's prolific 1960s period: long, dark, delicately recollective stories concentrating on O'Hara's years in Hollywood. Largely familiar work, all of it previously gathered into collections--but a solid sampling of O'Hara's expertise with social milieu and regional dialogue, also reflecting the swells of emotion beneath the dry, clipped exteriors.
