Appointment in Samarra

by John O'Hara

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Summary

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Appointment in Samarra begins the morning of Christmas Eve as Lute Fliegler and his wife, Irma, lie in bed at their home in Gibbsville, Pennsylvania. Lute is a car dealer who works for Julian English, the main character of the novel. Later that day, the town’s most prominent members attend a dance at the Lantenengo Country Club. Irishman Harry Reilly likes getting attention by telling stories to the crowd. Julian watches him with contempt and fantasizes about throwing his drink at Harry’s face. The band is playing, and people are dancing. Suddenly the word goes out that Julian threw his highball at Harry’s face.

The next morning, Julian wakes up with a hangover and remembers the events of the night before. Julian’s wife, Caroline, gives him the news that everyone in town already knows about the incident at the party. Harry is wealthy and powerful, and having him as an enemy is bad news for Julian’s business. Julian asks if Harry has ever meant anything to her. Caroline denies it and reminds Julian of the insults he used against her the night before on the way home from the party. Julian wonders if his dad knows about the incident.

Al Grecco works for Ed Charney, the local bootlegger. Prior to meeting Ed, Al Grecco was involved in other criminal activities and was in and out of jail. On Christmas afternoon, Ed calls Al Grecco at the Apollo restaurant, where Al is having lunch. Ed’s son broke his arm, so Ed is going to stay home with him and his wife. He wants Al to spend the evening at the Stage Coach, a local club for the second-tier society of Gibbsville, keeping an eye on Helene Holman. Helene is Ed’s mistress and a torch singer at the club. Ed wants to make sure she doesn’t offer herself to other men.

Julian and Caroline go to Julian’s parents’ house for dinner. Doctor William English comes from one of Gibbsville’s oldest families. William’s father committed suicide after getting caught in a bank fraud, and William fears that his son, Julian, inherited his grandfather’s immoral tendencies. Julian notes that his father doesn’t seem to know what happened the night before at the Country Club. Though tense, the visit progresses uneventfully, and the young couple leaves on a good note. On the way home, Caroline asks Julian to stop by Harry’s house and apologize. He agrees on the condition that Caroline wait in bed for his return. Harry’s sister tells Julian that her brother doesn’t want to see him. He has a black eye from a piece of ice that hit him when Julian threw the drink. Back home, Julian and Caroline make passionate love.

Later that evening, on the way to another party at the Country Club, Julian and Caroline discuss their plans to start a family. Caroline complains about men who have affairs and women who condone their behavior. She makes Julian promise he will not get drunk that night. She offers to come out to the car with him during the dance intermission, as they used to do before they got married. The usual crowd is hanging out at the club, and Julian is ridiculed and ostracized. He keeps to himself and drinks while he waits for the opportunity to talk to Monsignor Creedon. Julian hopes the monsignor will help him repair his relationship with Harry, who is a Catholic. Contrary to what Julian expected, Father Creedon doesn’t think Julian’s action was overly reproachable. When Caroline learns about their conversation, she disapproves of Julian’s choice to speak to Father Creedon, and the...

(This entire section contains 1092 words.)

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couple argues. Caroline is no longer sure she will keep their date at intermission. Julian returns to the locker room to continue drinking.

At the Stage Coach, Lute and Irma Fliegler, along with others in their lower-class circle, dance and gossip. Al keeps tabs on Helene, who is wearing a provocative dress and doesn’t want to be ordered around. Julian sits with Al and Helene. He starts making passes at Helene despite Al’s allusion to her relationship with Ed Charney. Following a few dances, Julian and Helene go outside, and after some time goes by, Helene returns to the club. Caroline and Julian’s friends go to the car and wake up Julian. They drive back home. In his intoxication, Julian knows that punishment awaits him.

The next morning, December 26, Julian takes his frustrations out on Mrs. Grady, the house’s cook. He meets Irma in the street and pretends not to remember the details of the night before. He tries again to fix things with Harry, but Harry is leaving for New York and has no time to talk. At the office, Lute lectures Julian about his betrayal of Caroline. We learn that Ed is more upset with Al for failing to watch Helene than he is with Julian for stealing his woman.

Julian sits down to look at numbers and realizes that his dealership is headed toward financial disaster. He looks for his gun, goes to the bathroom, and puts the gun in his mouth. After this, Caroline calls and scolds him for mistreating Mrs. Grady. She threatens with calling off the party they had planned at their house that evening if he returns home drunk again. Julian goes to the Country Club, where only a few elderly lawyers are having lunch. There he meets Froggy, Caroline’s one-armed cousin, and gets into a fight with him. He punches one of the lawyers and flees.

Caroline visits her mother and tells her she wants a divorce. Mrs. Walker struggles with the news and tries to appease her daughter. Outside of the house, Julian waits for Caroline. They argue violently, and Caroline decides to call off the party. Julian goes home and falls asleep. The doorbell wakes him up. It’s Miss Alice Cartwright, the society columnist for the Standard in charge of reporting on their party. Julian offers her drinks and tries to seduce her. She accepts the drinks and gets physical with him but then rejects the sexual advances and leaves. Julian continues to drink and listen to music. He goes to the garage, gets in the car, and starts the engine. He smashes the clock on the dashboard: it’s 10:41 p.m.

Herbert Harley, the next-door neighbor, finds Julian an hour later and calls Doctor English. The coroner declares that Julian committed suicide via carbon monoxide poisoning.

Overview

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Julian English is thirty years old, a congenial seller of cars and popular with the country club set. He has the right connections with Ed Charney, the local bootlegger, and consequently is always well supplied with liquor. He and Caroline have been married four years. Both natives of Gibbsville, they have an assured social position and no children.

Just before Christmas, they go to a party at the country club. As usual, Julian has too much to drink. He sits idly twirling his highball and listening to Harry Reilly’s stories. Harry is a rich Irish Catholic and definitely a social climber. Julian dislikes Harry, although Harry loaned him twenty thousand dollars the previous summer to bolster his Cadillac agency. That loan does not give Harry the right to make passes at Caroline, Julian thinks darkly. Harry tells stories in paragraphs. He always pauses at the right time. Julian keeps thinking how fitting it would be if he stopped the stories by throwing his drink in Harry’s face. Julian grows bored. On impulse he does throw his drink in Harry’s face. A big lump of ice hits Harry in the eye.

On the way home, Julian and Caroline quarrel furiously. Julian accuses his wife of infidelity with Harry, among others. Caroline says that Julian always drinks too much and chases women as well. More important, Harry has a mortgage on the car agency and a good deal of influence with the Catholics, and he is a man who can hold a grudge.

Al Grecco is a little man who, as Ed Charney’s handyman, has a certain standing in the town. He likes Julian because Julian is the only one of the social set who is really friendly. Al grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. Before he was finally sentenced to a year in prison, he was arrested several times. When he got out, he worked in a poolroom for a while until his boss died. The widow wanted Al to stay on as manager, but he went to work for Charney. Now he delivers bootleg booze, runs errands, and keeps an eye on Helene Holman, the torch singer at the Stage Coach, a country inn owned by Charney. Helene is Charney’s girl, but Charney knows that if she is not carefully watched, she might, out of sheer good-heartedness, extend her favors to other men.

On Christmas Day, Julian wakes up with a hangover. As is his custom, he quarrels with the cook. At Caroline’s suggestion, he goes to Harry’s house to apologize. Although Harry’s sister is sympathetic, she brings down word that Harry will not see him; he has a black eye and is still perturbed.

Julian’s father and mother come for Christmas dinner. The father, a staid, successful surgeon, is always looking for evidence of moral weakness in Julian, for his own father committed suicide after embezzling a fortune. He is afraid that the English inheritance is stained. Dinner is a trying occasion.

Caroline and Julian have supper at the club. The usual crowd is there. Julian is unmercifully ribbed in the locker room. In a dismal mood, he sits drinking by himself while he waits for a chance to see Father Creedon and asks him to patch up his incident with Harry. The old priest is sympathetic and makes light of the affair. After agreeing that Harry is a bore, he promises to send Julian some good Irish whiskey.

Charney is a good family man who spends Christmas Day with his wife and son. He intends to go out to the Stage Coach only in the evening. Then his son becomes suddenly ill. It looks as if he will have to stay home. Mindful of Helene’s weaknesses, he telephones Al to go out to the inn to keep watch on her. It is Christmas night and she will be drinking too much. Al does not care for the assignment, but he dutifully goes out to the inn and sits down with Helene.

The country club set begins to drift in. Froggy Ogden, who is Caroline’s one-armed cousin, is the oldest man there; he seems to feel a responsibility for Julian, who is still drinking. In a spirit of bravado, Julian dances several times with Helene, even though Al warns him of Charney’s anger. Finally, carried away by the music and too many drinks, Julian and Helene leave the dance floor. Caroline and Froggy find Julian in a stupor in the back of a sedan and take him home.

The day after Christmas, Caroline goes to her mother and announces her intention to divorce Julian. Her mother finds it difficult to listen to her daughter. Caroline thinks of herself as a heroine in an old-fashioned melodrama. She is determined not to go back to Julian. After meeting him on the street and quarreling with him again, she cancels the big party that they were to have given that very evening.

As he backs out of the garage with a case of Scotch, Al decides to kill Charney. When Charney phoned him, Al tried to excuse his lack of vigilance: He protested that he allowed Helene only to dance. Charney, in a rage, said some things that Al cannot accept.

Determined to look businesslike, Julian goes to his office at the automobile agency. He sits importantly at his desk and writes figures on a piece of scratch paper. The only conclusion he can reach is that he needs more money. One of his salesmen comes in to try to lay down the law. He asserts that Julian’s difficulties are being gossiped about in the little town of Gibbsville. The offense to Charney is particularly grave: He is a good friend to the agency and helps them sell cars to other bootleggers.

Julian leaves the office in no cheerful mood. He wanders into his club for lunch. Since it is the day after Christmas, the dining room is deserted except for some elderly lawyers and Froggy. Avoiding his wife’s cousin, Julian sits down in a far corner of the room. After picking up his plate, Froggy follows him and begins to reproach him for his conduct with the torch singer. He tells Julian he always distrusted him and warned Caroline about his conduct many times. When Froggy invites him outside to fight, Julian refuses because he cannot hit a one-armed man. Froggy becomes more insulting, and the lawyers come to their table to intervene. Julian is intensely angered when they seem to side with Froggy. Turning quickly, he hits one of the lawyers in the mouth and dislodges his false teeth.

Julian goes home and falls asleep. About ten o’clock, a society reporter awakens him when she comes to get a story about the canceled party. After several drinks, he tries to seduce her but with no success. As soon as she leaves, Julian goes to the garage, closes the door, and starts the motor; his death is pronounced a suicide by the coroner.

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