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OONA O by Thomas Gallagher

OONA O

By

Pub Date: Sept. 14th, 1964
Publisher: Atheneum

A slip of a story about a sprite named Oona O'Hagen who signs her letters from Fiesole back to her brother in New York Oona O. They will reveal that she is hibernating there having the baby of Tony Fiedensohn, an eye surgeon, with a wife as well as a clinic in Florence. She takes none of this half as seriously as her family does (when they finally hear about it) since she believes that ""Everything that happens is like the person it happens to."" And Oona is by nature capricious, distracting, volatile, and above all determined to live for the moment-- the happy moment. Well, the baby is born when she is all alone (in a scene which would make a midwife flinch); she's ill but uninclined to listen to the local doctor (actually she has nephritis); she has trouble getting home with little Pia; and finally when she does, there's a little hope that this butterfly will not have reached the end of her life cycle.... A flyaway, emancipated entertainment- scarcely a novel, with snatches of sentiment.