{"id":93100,"date":"2015-12-30T15:00:07","date_gmt":"2015-12-30T20:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=93100"},"modified":"2015-12-21T12:43:39","modified_gmt":"2015-12-21T17:43:39","slug":"bewitched-bothered-and-bewildered-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/30\/bewitched-bothered-and-bewildered-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re away until January 4, but we\u2019re re-posting some of our favorite pieces from 2015. Please enjoy, and have a happy New Year!<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

From Robert Jonas\u2019s cover for an early paperback edition of Pal Joey<\/i>, ca. 1946.<\/p><\/div>\n

John O\u2019Hara\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>Pal Joey remains an exemplar of a rare form: the epistolary novella.<\/i><\/p>\n

Ever see the movie<\/a>? Well, do yourself a favor and don\u2019t. You should pardon me for bringing this up right off the bat, but it\u2019s so beyond being a mere stinkeroo that I get ahead of myself and must apologize. But you can trust me; I shall get back to it later.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard not to start sounding like Joey Evans after listening to him come up off the pages of John O\u2019Hara\u2019s novella. In fact, even if you\u2019re holding paper and ink, Pal Joey<\/a> <\/em>is always an \u201caudio book\u201d in some other, fundamental sense of the term. The osmotic nature of Joey\u2019s voice affects even the other characters. Vera\u2014the rich older woman whom O\u2019Hara added to the theatrical adaptation\u2014says, in a moment of amazed exasperation: \u201cGood God, I\u2019m getting to talk like you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joey\u2019s is an American voice from the second act of the American century, a time when the country\u2019s wisecracks and slang, thanks to movies and even to books, wrapped themselves around the thoughts and vocal cords of half the world. O\u2019Hara had the upwardly mobile luck to be in possession of the best ear anybody had for catching and transmitting the national lingo.<\/p>\n

Frank MacShane, one of the author\u2019s biographers, explains that the first Pal Joey <\/em>story, published in The New Yorker <\/em>on October 22, 1938, got written after O\u2019Hara went off on \u201ca two\u2010day bender\u201d instead of the stretch of work he\u2019d pledged to his wife: Read More >><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re away until January 4, but we\u2019re re-posting some of our favorite pieces from 2015. Please enjoy, and have a happy New Year! John O\u2019Hara\u2019s\u00a0Pal Joey remains an exemplar of a rare form: the epistolary novella. Ever see the movie? Well, do yourself a favor and don\u2019t. You should pardon me for bringing this up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":326,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20653],"tags":[20212,17820,20213,20214,16691,20210,20211,2075,6206,18813,5335,124,20208,20207,9247,15004,3072,40,20209],"class_list":["post-93100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-of-2015","tag-art-cooper","tag-broadway","tag-damon-runyan","tag-down-beat","tag-epistolary-novels","tag-frances-kiernan","tag-gentlemans-quarterly","tag-gq","tag-john-ohara","tag-lingo","tag-musicals","tag-new-york","tag-nightclubs","tag-pal-joey","tag-penguin-classics","tag-ring-lardner","tag-slang","tag-the-new-yorker","tag-thomas-mallon"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nJohn O\u2019Hara\u2019s \u201cPal Joey\u201d at 75: Still an Exemplary Novella<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Thomas Mallon looks at O\u2019Hara\u2019s slim, pitch-perfect book, which inspired a Broadway show and a movie.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/30\/bewitched-bothered-and-bewildered-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered by Thomas Mallon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"December 30, 2015 \u2013 We\u2019re away until January 4, but we\u2019re re-posting some of our favorite pieces from 2015. 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