Appointment in Samarra

by John O'Hara

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Characters Discussed

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Julian English

Julian English, an automobile dealer who drinks too much. He picks fights with his friends and benefactors, gets publicly drunk, drives his wife to seek a divorce, and chases after a bootlegger’s woman. When his acts add up and life becomes too complicated for him, he commits suicide.

Caroline English

Caroline English, a woman as superficial as her husband. When she decides to seek a divorce from her husband, she acts like a heroine in melodrama, cancelling a big party on short notice.

Harry Reilly

Harry Reilly, a wealthy Irish Catholic. At a party, Julian throws a drink in his face, despite the fact that Reilly has befriended him and lent him the money needed to keep his Cadillac agency solvent. Julian seems a bit surprised when Reilly holds a grudge.

Helene Holman

Helene Holman, a nightclub singer and bootlegger’s woman. She and Julian get together while drunk at a Christmas celebration.

Ed Charney

Ed Charney, a bootlegger. Though a family man, he keeps Helene as his mistress and is resentful of the favors she shows other men. He becomes angry at his aide, Al Grecco, for letting Helene become involved with Julian.

Al Grecco

Al Grecco, a small-time gangster who becomes angry at Charney’s insults and vows to kill him.

Froggy Ogden

Froggy Ogden, Caroline English’s one-armed cousin, who tries to goad Julian into a fight after reproaching him for his conduct.

Dr. English

Dr. English, Julian’s father, who looks for moral weakness in his son because his own father was an embezzler and a suicide.

Father Creedon

Father Creedon, a priest who agrees with Julian that Harry Reilly is a bore. He refuses to take the incident of Julian’s insulting Reilly seriously.

Characters

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Julian McHenry English

The thirty-year-old protagonist of the book, Julian runs the local dealership and belongs to Gibbsville’s most privileged class. A heavy drinker with impulsive behavior, Julian embarks on a journey of self-destruction.

Caroline Walker English

Caroline is Julian’s thirty-one-year-old wife. The elite of Gibbsville hold her in high regard. Though she loves her husband, she worries about losing the comfort of her social status as a result of his irresponsible behavior.

Harry Reilly

Harry is an Irish Catholic who has lots of money and is perceived as a social climber by Julian and others from the Gibbsville elite.

Al Grecco

Al is a right-hand man to Ed Charney, the local bootlegger. He delivers illegal booze to the rich and keeps an eye on Ed’s mistress.

Dr. William Dilworth English

Also known as William or Billy, Dr. English is Julian’s father. A successful physician, Dr. English spent his life trying to make up for the fact that his father embezzled some bank funds and later committed suicide. His family is one of the oldest in Gibbsville: “He was of Revolutionary stock.”

Mrs. Elizabeth McHenry English

Mrs. English is Julian’s mother and Dr. English’s wife. She is cold toward Julian and thinks higher of her daughter-in-law than of her son. Elizabeth’s father opposed her marriage to Dr. English.

Luther LeRoy Fliegler

Forty years old, happily married, and a father to three children, Lute is Julian’s right-hand man at the dealership. He is an honest and hardworking family man who hopes to save enough money to join the Lantenengo Country Club.

Irma Fliegler

The wife of Lute Fliegler, Irma is everything that Caroline English is not: an honest and happy wife who will soon be able to join Gibbsville’s elite thanks to her family’s hard work.

Ed Charney

Ed is Gibbsville’s only bootlegger and minor mobster. He is unhappily...

(This entire section contains 892 words.)

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married to a woman named Annie, with whom he has a six-year-old son he adores. He keeps a mistress at the Stage Coach, the local club he owns.

Helene Holman

Helene is the torch singer at the Stage Coach and Ed Charney’s mistress. Al Grecco is in charge of keeping tabs on her, but she hates to be controlled. She named herself after Libby Holman, a torch singer and actress of the time.

Monsignor Creedon

Father Creedon is a Catholic dean respected by people of all creeds. When Julian talks to him about the incident with Harry, Father Creedon admits that he doesn’t care about Harry and thinks he’s “a horse’s ass.” He also confesses that he sometimes wishes he had taken a different path than the spiritual one.

Mrs. Waldo Wallace Walker

Mrs. Walker is Caroline’s mother. The widow of Judge Walker, Mrs. Walker is known as one of Gibbsville’s most attractive ladies—at least, in her age group. She is simple-minded and shallow, and she doesn’t know how to relate to her daughter.

Whitman Hofman

The richest and most impeccable member of the Gibbsville aristocracy, Whit is married to Kitty Hofman. He is the only man in Julian’s circle who never tried to seduce Caroline.

Kitty Hoffman

Married to Whit Hoffman, Kitty is one of Caroline’s closest friends. She helped Caroline organize the December 26 party that was later cancelled due to Julian and Caroline’s fight.

Miss Alice Cartwright

Miss Cartwright writes for the society column at the Standard. On the night of December 26, she arrives at the Englishes’ home to find out details about the party. After telling her that the party was cancelled, Julian offers her drinks, and they end up kissing. She is the last person to see Julian alive and the only one who knows this.

Froggy Ogden

Froggy is Caroline’s thirty-four-year-old cousin. He is a one-armed veteran of World War I and a respected member of the Lantenengo elite. Julian finds out at the end of the book that Froggy despises him and is not his best friend.

Jean Ogden

Jean is married to Froggy and is Caroline’s best friend. Jean and Julian had a passionate romance many years ago and now maintain a good relationship.

Bobby Herrmann

A member of the Lantenengo Country Club, Bobby is part of Julian’s extended circle. He disdains Julian for not having fought in World War I and enjoys seeing his decline.  

Constance Walker

Constance is Caroline’s cousin, and she is about twenty-one years old. Although her body is said to be gorgeous and, according to Julian, nicer than Caroline’s, she is known as one of the “sad birds” of the Lantenengo club because she doesn’t have a pretty face.

Herbert G. Haley

Herbert is Julian’s next-door neighbor. He is married with children. After hearing a car’s engine running in the Englishes’ garage, he finds Julian and tries to resuscitate him, but it is too late.

Mary Manners

Mary Manners was Julian’s beautiful Polish girlfriend when he and Caroline started dating. Although Julian was crazy about Mary, he didn’t marry her because of the difference in their social classes.

Mary Klein

Mary Klein is Julian’s secretary at the dealership. She represents the “solid, respectable, Pennsylvania Dutch, Lutheran middle class,” and Julian tries to make a good impression on her.

Characters

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The swift, vivid portrayal of character is one of O'Hara's greatest strengths as a novelist, and beginning with this first novel even the minor characters, such as Al Greeco, the bootlegger, and Caroline English's mother, are finely and realistically drawn. Like Sinclair Lewis in Main Street (1920), and William Faulkner in his stories about Jefferson, Mississippi, O'Hara peoples the town of Gibbsville, Pennsylvania (based on his hometown of Pottsville), with characters representing a variety of social levels, ethnic backgrounds, attitudes, and tastes, in order to present complexities of social interaction and viewpoint. Julian English represents Gibbsville's ruling class, but he is conscious, as is everyone else, that the Englishes have only recently achieved this socioeconomic level, and that their hold on it is precarious. But in contrast to Sinclair Lewis's sharp satire on the various types of people who populate the American small town, O'Hara presents his characters with a warmth that verges on the nostalgic even when, as in the case of Julian, they are not wholly admirable.

Julian McHenry English

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Julian is the thirty-year-old son of Dr. William Dilworth English. He is the protagonist of the novel and the character expected to attend the inevitable appointment with death announced in the title. Born into a life of privilege, Julian bears a family name that captures his entitlement to all things WASP. Although he claims not to have an issue with those who are perceived as inferior by the members of his social circle (non-Anglo-Saxons, Catholics, Jews, African Americans, and women), his snobbery and behavior reflect the prerogatives of someone who proudly belongs to the ruling class. He could have married a Polish woman he once loved, but he chose not to because of her lesser social status. A certain degree of prestige stems from the fact that Julian manages the local Cadillac dealership. However, Julian lacks the will and skills to be a successful businessman, and his career choice is perceived as a wasted opportunity for a doctor’s son. Another sign of Julian’s lack of self-worth is his marriage to Caroline, one of the most respected women in Gibbsville. Next to her, Julian often feels inadequate.

Although neither Julian himself nor other characters in the book describe Julian as an alcoholic, his drinking habits are those of an addict. He indulges in mixed drinks and Scotch at all hours of the day, including after he wakes up in the morning. He is a heavy smoker, and his mother criticizes him for not being in good shape. His relationship to his parents is distant. Despite these facts and his own internal self-doubt, Julian’s arrogance and self-destructive impulses lead him to act with bravado in front of those who are supposed to be beneath him, as well as in front of his peers.

Julian criticizes Froggy, his so-called best friend, for being a hypocrite and having hid for so long his aversion to Julian. However, Julian also acts hypocritically on many occasions, mainly in relation to Harry Reilly, who lent him money and ends up being the target of Julian’s anger and lack of self-control. It is said that Julian never broke Caroline’s trust during their years together, but his alleged sexual encounter with the torch singer at the Stage Coach shows Julian drifting away from his marital vows and precipitates his fall. Even though infidelity is socially accepted and even condoned in Gibbsville, Julian’s blatant flirting with the singer is considered distasteful and goes beyond what is tolerated. His unsuccessful attempt to seduce Miss Cartwright signals both his straying from moral values and his failure as a ladies’ man.

Julian’s feelings of guilt are implicit in the disappointment he caused his father when he was caught shoplifting as a child. It is also suggested that Julian carries guilt for not having fought in World War I. His endearing qualities come across in some moments of tenderness with Caroline and in his thoughts toward her: he can be kind, funny, and charming.

Caroline Walker English

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Julian’s wife, Caroline, is the thirty-one-year-old daughter of Mrs. Waldo Wallace Walker. She is the second-most important character in the novel and the only one that has an entire chapter dedicated to her (chapter 5). Her mother raises her in a hands-off way, and Caroline grows up to be independent and well-educated. A privileged Anglo-Saxon woman, Caroline disliked most of the children at the Mission school where she once worked as a teacher, favoring the very few “who are more like Lantenengo Street children.”  

She has a skewed perspective on sexuality due to a lack of communication with her mother and having been molested by an eleven-year-old boy while she was working at the Mission school. At twenty-six, Caroline had grown weary of men, and by the time she started dating Julian, she had had a couple of failed romances. She decided to lose her virginity to Julian once she knew they loved each other and would get married. The couple then settled into a privileged life on the elitist Lantenengo Street.

Caroline and Julian agreed that they would have children after their fifth year of marriage, but Caroline is concerned that she could become the housewife who gets cheated on. By the time the action of the novel takes place, Caroline has become tired of Julian’s excessive drinking and uncontrollable behavior. Despite the fact that her love for Julian is sincere, Caroline is not willing to compromise her social status over his recklessness, and she refuses to go away with Julian when he asks. Outside her arguments with Julian, the only time we see Caroline lose her temper and be blunt is when Dr. English gives her the news of Julian’s death:

“Ah, go away. You did it. You, you don’t like him. You did, too, you pompous old man. . . . He never liked you. . . . So high and mighty and nasty to him when we went to your house for Christmas. Don’t think he didn’t notice it. You made him do it, not me.”  

This may be the only time we see her speak her mind to someone who is not her husband. Her words demonstrate that Caroline, like Julian, can be a hypocrite: in chapter 3, after the couple opened the envelopes with the Christmas money given to them by Dr. and Mrs. English, Caroline said that Julian’s parents were “so swell.”

Al Grecco

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While he is not part of the privileged social circle surrounding the English family, Al is an important character in the book, with a long background section dedicated to his past in chapter 2 and appearances in most of the other chapters. He is twenty-six and has worked as Ed Charney’s right-hand man for four years, helping him run his bootlegging operations. A native of Gibbsville born to Italian parents, Al Grecco’s real name is Anthony Joseph Marascho. After living a life of crime and ending up in jail, he became a prize fighter and acquired his nickname when a journalist described his movements as comparable to the beauty and grace of El Grecco’s art.

Al Grecco is not fond of the upper class people that he serves as part of his job. He doesn’t feel intimidated by them either. “Merry Christmas, you stuck up bastards,” he yells as he drives by Lantenengo Street one night. He appreciates folks like Lute Fliegler, who is a “square shooter” in Al’s mind. He is guided by his instincts and keen ability to observe people.

Al is extremely wealthy for his young age, having amassed a fortune of approximately thirty-six thousand dollars.

Harry Reilly

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An Irish Catholic somewhat older than Julian, Harry is a member of the Gibbsville nouveau riche. He managed to climb socially and enter the Lantenengo Country Club by virtue of his good-spirited personality and his ability to make a fortune. Most people in Julian’s circle owe Harry money, and he is the main stockholder in Julian’s Cadillac dealership. Julian borrowed a big sum from Harry the summer prior to the action of the novel.

Harry is single and lives with his widowed sister and her children. In the summer of 1926, he was one of Caroline’s four suitors, along with Julian. This and Harry’s alleged advances to Caroline are said to be reasons behind Julian’s resentment toward Harry and his impulse to throw a drink in his face. Despite Julian’s scorn, Harry expresses sadness when he hears about the suicide. As he reasons, “I liked English and he liked me, or otherwise he wouldn’t have borrowed money from me.”

Characters

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Ross Campbell

Ross had been one of Caroline’s suitors just prior to her marriage to Julian. By the book’s end, he is with Julian’s former love, Mary Manners, and working for Ed Charney.

Miss Alice Cartwright

Miss Cartwright is the society columnist from The Standard who arrives at Julian and Caroline’s home on the last night of Julian’s life in order to verify the guest list for the party that was to have taken place there that evening. After she is told of the party’s cancellation, she winds up sharing several drinks with Julian and telling him her woes as an underpaid journalist. She and Julian kiss, but she leaves before anything more serious occurs. Miss Cartwright is the last person to see Julian alive.

Ed Charney

Ed is Gibbsville, Pennsylvania’s answer to Al Capone. A minor gangster, Ed oversees all bootlegging, gambling, and prostitution activities between Reading and Wilkes-Barre. Unhappily married, Ed keeps a mistress, Helene Holman, under the watchful eye of his henchman Al Grecco.

Despite having little use for most of the Lantenengo Street crowd, Ed thinks highly of Julian: “I will take that English. He’s a right guy.” Although Ed does not often employ extreme violence as a means to an end, he is not above blackmail and his men are capable of carrying out his bidding.

Monsignor Creedon

Monsignor Creedon is the local Catholic rural dean, who had been denied the opportunity to turn his parish into a cathedral and become a bishop. Well-respected by all faiths in the community, Creedon is also a country club member who tells Julian in confidence on the night before Julian’s suicide that he thinks “Harry Reilly is a horse’s ass.” He also listens to Julian’s confession of sorts—that he never should have been a Cadillac salesman—and Creedon suggests that perhaps Julian is a failed literary man.

Carter Davis

A childhood friend of Julian’s, Carter is also a member of the country club set. Once counted among Caroline’s potential suitors, Carter attempts to save Julian from himself and the attentions of Helene Holman at the Stage Coach. Carter is also there to shuttle Julian home from the Stage Coach.

Caroline Walker English

Caroline is the thirty-one-year-old wife of Julian English. Married to him for more than five years, Caroline is a much-admired member of Gibbsville’s smart set. Despite her education at Bryn Mawr, Caroline is a rather naïve yet sexually manipulative woman who had grown “a little tired” of Julian, whom she had known since she was a child, by the time she fell in love with him in 1926. Although she had a few failed romances, Julian took her virginity and they wed and settled into a privileged lifestyle. The couple, however, never had any children and seem to have grown apart over the years.

As Julian’s life begins its downward spiral, Caroline has grown weary of his drinking and reckless behavior. At one point, she even wishes him dead since he has killed something inside of her after apparently seducing Helene Holman. When Julian, at the end of his rope, requests that they both leave Gibbsville, she opts to remain, choosing the life of convenience she has always known rather than the unknown. While she is saddened by his death, she confirms the inevitability of it, saying, “It was time for him to die.”

Mrs. Elizabeth McHenry English

Mrs. English is Julian’s mother and the wife of Dr. English. She seems to hold Caroline in higher esteem than she does her own son, perhaps because of her husband’s negative views of Julian and his character.

Julian McHenry English

Julian English is the thirty-year-old protagonist of the story. Born into a life of privilege, Julian begins a seemingly purposeful slide into oblivion over the course of three days. Ensnared in the complicated web of Gibbsville society, Julian has fallen into a trap of sorts, expected to fulfill the role of a businessman when he’s not much of one at all. He also finds himself married to a well-admired woman of whom he does not always feel worthy.

Julian indulges in heavy drinking and inappropriate behavior that leads to his self-inflicted downfall, which is perhaps a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts as he follows his grandfather’s fate of suicide. Julian takes pride in his sexual prowess; however, this likely masks his greater insecurities and shortcomings as a husband and a son. Furthermore, he bears a certain degree of guilt over the fact the he was unable to serve in World War I. His outrage, too, at the hypocritical behavior of others is ironic in that he too is a hypocrite. He can barely comprehend that his so-called long-time friend Froggy never really liked him when Julian himself had turned to Harry Reilly in a time of need even though he didn’t ever care much for the man. For all his shortcomings, though, Julian has the capacity to be a regular guy, attempting to treat those around him with the same respect with which they treat him.

Ultimately, Julian feels stifled and takes his revenge by acting out with unacceptable behavior. His affair with a Polish girl who was beneath his social station is quashed, and this untraveled road haunts him until the end of his life.

Dr. William Dilworth English

Dr. English is Julian’s father. A socially successful physician, his medical practices have been deemed murderous by some. He holds a certain amount of disdain for his son, having desired Julian to follow him into a career in medicine. Julian, however, never had any desire to pursue a medical degree.

Dr. English seems to note characteristics in Julian that were also present in Dr. English’s own father, who committed suicide many years earlier amid a scandal involving misappropriated funds. At the novel’s end, Caroline attempts to blame Dr. English for Julian’s suicide, saying, “You did it. You, you don’t like him. You did, too, you pompous old man.”

Irma Fliegler

Irma Fliegler is the wife of Lute Fliegler. Content in her modest life with Lute on Lantenengo Street, she still strives for an improved position while noting that she wouldn’t trade her life with Lute for that of Caroline and Julian. Proud and respectful of her hardworking husband, she is a pleasant complement to Lute, a fact that is not lost on Julian. He “knew that if there was one person to whom he would tell [his troubles], it would be Irma.” Unfortunately for Julian, he opts not to turn to Irma for help, despite the fact that he’d grown up with her, as she is “the wife of one of his employees.”

Luther LeRoy Fliegler

The underling of Julian English at the Gibbsville Cadillac dealership, Lute is something of a foil to Julian. His social position is not nearly that of Julian’s; he is saving earnestly in order to join the Lantenengo Country Club. He lives a modest life with his wife, Irma, and their three children; their life, although much less glamorous than that of Caroline and Julian, has a happy and honest quality to it. Lute, however, is not one to pass judgment. When he speaks with Julian about his recent bad behavior, including Julian’s supposed physical indiscretion with Helene Holman, he is chastising but also supportive and reassures Julian that things—and the business—will turn around in due time: “Aw, what the hell. We’ll get by . . . it’ll work out one way or another.”

After Julian’s death, Lute finds himself in a position to run the dealership and perhaps catapult into a higher social echelon.

Al Grecco

Al Grecco has been henchman to Ed Charney for four years. A Gibbsville native, young Al’s real name is Anthony Joseph Marascho. He picked up the name Al Grecco while pursuing a career as a prize fighter. Only twenty-six years old, Al has accumulated a formidable amount of money overseeing Ed’s bootlegging operations.

Al holds the rich of Gibbsville in a certain amount of disdain and, unlike others in the town, he has his doubts about the integrity of Caroline English; however, he does hold Julian in a higher regard. In fact, Al even goes so far as to follow Julian home one evening when he spies him weaving drunkenly on the road. After doing so, though, Al’s true feelings toward the rest of the Lantenengo Street crowd become clear as he rolls down his window and shouts, “Merry Christmas, you stuckup bastards!”

Al is present when Julian leaves the Stage Coach with Helene Holman.

Herbert G. Harley

Herbert Harley is Julian’s next-door neighbor. After hearing the Cadillac’s engine running inside the garage, Harley discovers Julian’s lifeless body in the car. He pulls him out but is minutes too late to save him.

Bobby Herrmann

Bobby is a member of the Lantenengo Country Club and, as such, is part of Julian’s extended circle of peers, although it is clear that he takes great delight in Julian’s slipping status. He and Julian exchange words at the club on Christmas night and Bobby implies that Julian had purposefully avoided service in World War I while he and others braved the perils of going overseas.

Kitty Hofman

Kitty Hofman is the wife of Whit Hofman and a member of Caroline and Julian’s inner circle of friends. Known for being frank, she first informs Caroline of how dire the consequences of Julian’s actions against Harry Reilly could be. Kitty has had her own run-ins with socially unacceptable behavior, having received a black eye from Carter Davis after she kicked him, and then getting into a catfight of sorts with another woman in the club. Kitty is present when Julian leaves the Stage Coach with Helene Holman.

Whitney Hofman

Whit Hofman is the ringleader of the Lantenengo Country Club set, often presiding over the hub of action at the club. Whit remains decidedly neutral during Julian’s foray into oblivion. Married to Kitty, he has been known to engage in childish, albeit harmless antics from time to time. Whit is present at the Stage Coach when Julian overindulges and goes off with Helene Holman. He enters the country club as Julian is fleeing from his bout with Froggy; Julian thinks as he passes Whit, “Whit probably hated him and had hated him for years, just as Froggy had done.” Whit is the only one of Julian’s friends who had never made a pass at Caroline.

Helene Holman

Helene is Ed Charney’s mistress and a professional singer of sorts. Al Grecco spends a good deal of time keeping tabs on Helene, but she winds up dancing with Julian one ill-fated night and leaves the bar to go out to a car with him. It is implied that she and Julian have sex, although Julian denies the charge to Lute.

Mary Klein

Mary Klein is Julian’s secretary at the Cadillac dealership. A world-class worrier, she greets Julian each morning with a laundry list of woes; however, Julian notes, “you could stop her at any point and she would not be offended.” She represents to Julian “precisely what she came from: solid, respectable, Pennsylvania Dutch, Lutheran middle class,” something that raises insecurities and prejudices within Julian, who believes that she and others like her “secretly hated him and all the Lantenengo Street people.” He spends his last day of life at work trying to look busy in the hope that “he was making a good impression on Mary Klein.”

Mary Manners

Mary Manners is the Polish girl who was the love of Julian’s life. Because of their differing social positions, Julian was unable to pursue a real relationship with Mary. She was forced to “go away or her father would have killed her.” The two shared a sexually charged relationship and Julian comes to the realization that she “had loved him and never would love anyone else the same way.” She appears at the novel’s end, sharing a drink with Ross Campbell, who describes her as “the prettiest girl I ever saw.”

Joe Montgomery

Joe Montgomery is a playboy with whom Caroline fell in love just prior to leaving for an extended trip to Europe. He is the first man to see her unclothed as well as the first to seriously proposition her, an offer she declines. She does, however, accept his informal marriage proposal but is unable to see him again before she departs two days later, having made prior plans to get together with Julian, Jean, and Froggy. While Caroline is in Europe, Joe meets another woman and ends the longdistance affair. Caroline continues to remember him as “the man she had loved most in her life.”

Froggy Ogden

Froggy Ogden, thirty-four years old, is a cousin to Caroline English and a member of Julian’s social enclave. Froggy served in World War I and lost an arm in battle there. Froggy’s presence reminds Julian of his lack of service in the war.

Froggy and his wife, Jean, who is Caroline’s best friend, helped orchestrate the pairing of Julian and Caroline by planning a double-date the night before Caroline was to leave for her extended trip to Europe. Julian counts Froggy as one of his best friends, something that is an error in judgment as Froggy confronts Julian after his dalliance with Helene Holman and tells Julian that he’s always hated him. Froggy then challenges Julian to a fistfight, something Julian tries desperately to avoid, but he winds up punching Froggy anyway.

Jean Ogden

Jean is married to Froggy Ogden and is Caroline’s best friend. Many years ago, Julian and Jean had had a passionate love affair, one in which “everything that they ever could have been to each other, Jean and Julian had been.” The affair ended amicably and left each “ready really to love someone else.”

Harry Reilly

A former suitor of Caroline’s, Harry Reilly is a member of Gibbsville’s nouveau riche. A longwinded Irish Catholic, he shares his home with his widowed sister and her children. Harry has managed to social-climb in Gibbsville “by being a ‘good fellow,’ ‘being himself,’ and by sheer force of the money which everyone knew the Reillys had.”

A member of several committees, Harry Reilly uses his money to get things done. Further, most of Julian’s set are in personal debt to Harry as he has lent them money with the onset of the Depression. He lent Julian a formidable sum of money the previous summer, a fact that does not prevent Julian from hurling a drink in Harry’s face the night before Christmas at the country club. Harry is hurt and humiliated by the gesture (he refuses to see Julian the next day when he comes to Harry’s home to apologize) and word quickly spreads through the town that Harry could use his influence to hurt Julian professionally and socially.

While other townspeople concede that Harry Reilly is a bit of a blowhard, Julian’s motivation may also come from the fact that he believes that “Reilly always danced a lot with and was elaborately attentive to Caroline English.”

Constance Walker

Constance is Caroline’s cousin and ten years her junior. She bears a striking resemblance to Caroline, and although she isn’t as pretty, she is “fresher—to [Julian].” Constance isn’t a virgin, but the boys at the club believe she is; although she has a gorgeous figure, those who bed her are ashamed to admit it because she is not considered a beauty. She attends Smith College and, in spite of her youth, is more worldly than Caroline, a fact that Julian notes as he shares a dance with her at the Christmas Day dinner at the country club.

Jerome Walker

Jerome is a distant cousin of Caroline’s and her first love. A captain in the British army, he arrived in Gibbsville in 1918 at the age of twentyfive to teach modern warfare to the draft army after suffering a leg wound. He left Gibbsville without declaring his love for Caroline and succumbed to gangrene six months later.

Mrs. Waldo Wallace Walker

Caroline’s mother, Mrs. Walker, is a welldressed lady and the most attractive woman of her age in Gibbsville. She is decidedly shallow on many levels: “You would know her for all the things she was . . . [when] you expect her to say something good and wise about life, . . . what she would say would be: ‘Oh, fish! I must have my rings cleaned.’”

Because someone once told her that Caroline had a great independence of spirit, Mrs. Walker took this to heart, raising Caroline in a very handsoff manner. A serious emotional distance exists between the two and when Caroline goes to her mother for sympathy over the terrible state of her marriage, her mother only offers vague advice and contradictions and refuses to hear any talk of divorce.

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