The Cape Cod Lighter

by John O'Hara

John O'Hara's matchless portrait of life in the twentieth century - the scorching depiction of fate and passion by America's most powerful novelist. 23 short stories.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

425 pages, Hardcover

First published October 12, 1962

About the author

American writer John Henry O'Hara contributed short stories to the New Yorker and wrote novels, such as BUtterfield 8 (1935) and Ten North Frederick (1955).

Best-selling works of John Henry O'Hara include Appointment in Samarra . People particularly knew him for an uncannily accurate ear for dialogue. O'Hara, a keen observer of social status and class differences, wrote frequently about the socially ambitious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_O&#...

Reviews

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

A short story collection from 1962 which seems, now, to be OOP. Copies can be found via online sellers (which is how I found one). If you lean at all in O'Hara's direction, snap one up!

23 stories - and there ain't a bad one in the bunch! Smart, funny, well-observed, minutely detailed, scalpel-precision, glorious dialogue, a certain timelessness, moments of pathos, occasional tragedy as well as sudden surprise - it's all here! The 'worst' that can be said of any of these tales is that, near the end of the volume, a few stories seem a bit sketchy - *but* they're still well-written.

O'Hara is simply one of the all-time best! Certainly in the Top 5 of best-ever among short story writers. I LOVE THIS GUY! ;)

[John Harder · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Cape Cod Lighter is a collection of short stories. John O’Hara was hitting is stride in the sixties. Though a brilliant writer I don’t think he gets enough critical acclaim – somewhat regarded as the best of a second tier writer catering to the masses. Well sometimes the masses know better than the elites.

Many of O’Hara’s stories leave something unsaid which at times makes the point of the story better than an explicit slap in the face. They also somehow leave you with wanting something more, but ultimately one is glad not to get it – the story would be diminished and less thought provoking.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had not previously read O'Hara's short stories and was pleasantly surprised. The stories move quickly and are entertaining. Several are set in the '60s, while others stretch back to the era of World War I. A few of the stories are quite long. O'Hara has a great ear for conversation and an ability to quickly sketch a scene.

All in all a rewarding collection. If you're new to O'Hara give this one a try.

[Tony Goriainoff]

Interesting stories some of them.

[AJ Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

First thing I've read by O'Hara...the stories and writing pull you in, but not many of the characters are sympathetic

[Marilyn]

This is a short story collection. Is it even about Cape Cod? I’ll have to find out.

[Bob Newman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Stories of White, Middle-Class Americans in “The Old Days”

And I don’t remember those old days with a lot of fondness! These 23 stories portray small town America when that meant portraying Anglo-Saxons in middle class professions, very socially-competitive, very money and materially-conscious. No one engages (at least in public or in the writer’s imagination) in intellectual activity. They are always drinking and smoking as if that were the only possible way of life. A “real man” eats steaks at “The Club” and drinks at every opportunity. These stories are of the ideas and behavior of people trying “to get ahead” in that post-war style that died in the 1960s in the particular mode shown here. Man, I had rejected this sort of life when I was fifteen! Well, it was all around me, but as an outsider, I opted out with no regrets.
You can read of various cases of adultery, of sexual hangups, of a bar and the corruption around it during Prohibition, a wanna-be runaway daughter, lack of communication between parents and children, and an old, successful newspaper reporter facing a come-down in life at a small town paper. A worldly engineer turns out to be gay, and so passes up a chance at a relationship with a woman who dies in a crash. Two girls prefer each other to George, but one has sex with him anyway, the other is disgusted by even the idea of sex.
The dialogues are incredibly snappy like those in American films of those years, but the endings are flat! Amazing for a writer who, after all, had considerable success in his time. The shallow characters are well-constructed in a way, if limited to a small slice of America—cut from similar cloth as it were. But however well the story begins, in almost all cases, there’s a squishy sound, a thud, and it’s over. What is lacking is interior dialogue, a psychological slant on actions, contradictions in personality.
How could this be literature? Well, it is by the standards of Mills and Boone, for example, but there is so much better stuff out there. If you have nothing to do, maybe you would enjoy reading these old-fashioned, limited stories, but otherwise, keep on looking.

P.S. And I never figured out what "Cape Cod Lighter" referred to, but then I could have missed it.

[Murray · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not a big fan of short story collections and, going in, thought that this was a novel. I am, however, a fan of John O'Hara and the world that he creates in his novels and short stories. Most of his characters face moral dilemmas, often involving their spouses or lovers, and they frequently follow the path of greatest self-destruction. What makes this collection work is the plethora of characters that populate all of the stories - people we would probably not otherwise meet in a novel.

My favorite story in the collection, "Pat Collins", also happens to be the longest (about 45 pages). It tells the story of two men who become fast friends until one seduces the other's wife. It probably would have made a good novel, but, for whatever reason, O'Hara opted not to expand on this. My 3 star rating is for the entire collection, but "Pat Collins" is worthy of 5 stars.

Several of the other stories had memorable characters and themes. I most enjoyed the ones that held you to the last sentence or two, where O'Hara surprises his readers with a summation that yields the 'aha' moment.