The Doctor's Son
By John O'Hara
1935
First Published
3.97
Average Rating
217
Number of Pages
Secrets emerge as a fearsome contagion in this long autobiographical story set in small-town Pennsylvania amid the influenza pandemic of 1918. “The Doctor’s Son” concerns James "Jimmy" Malloy, a teenager on the uncertain edge of manhood, confronted by sudden death and the loss of illusions. Having worked himself to exhaustion, his father, Doctor Mike Malloy enlists “Doctor” Myers, a medical student, to treat his patients until he has recovered and fifteen-year-old Jimmy drives Myers around the county on his rounds. O’Hara’s earliest account of his fraught relationship with his formidable father, this classic tale is, in the words of New York Times cultural critic Charles McGrath, "a love story, really, if a frustrated, unrequited one." It is also a fascinating record of the social effects of America's first great confrontation with a global pandemic.
Avg Rating
3.97
Number of Ratings
65
5 STARS
34%
4 STARS
38%
3 STARS
20%
2 STARS
6%
1 STARS
2%
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Author
John O'Hara
Author · 43 books
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&#...</a>
