Background
Edwin Greene O'Connor was born on July 29, 1918, in Providence, Rhode Island, United States, the son of John Vincent O'Connor, a doctor, and Mary Greene. His childhood he spent in Woonsocket, Rhode Island.
(Hardcover: 434 pages Publisher: Little, Brown & Co.; Book...)
Hardcover: 434 pages Publisher: Little, Brown & Co.; Book Club (BCE/BOMC) edition (1966) Language: English ASIN: B003026EMS Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.6 x 1.1 inches Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
https://www.amazon.com/All-Family-Edwin-OConnor/dp/B001KWW3UW?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B001KWW3UW
( “A realistic Christian novel of hope in a non-Christian...)
“A realistic Christian novel of hope in a non-Christian age.”—New England Quarterly “A deeply felt and eloquently expressed work . . . A quiet, gentle novel of considerable insight and charm . . .”—Library Journal “O’Connor succeeds in delineating poignantly the overwhelming spiritual storms of the soul which assail the conscientious clergyman.”—The Christian Century Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction In this moving novel, Father Hugh Kennedy, a recovering alcoholic, returns to Boston to repair his damaged priesthood. There he is drawn into the unruly world of the Carmodys, a sprawling, prosperous Irish family teeming with passion and riddled with secrets. The story of this entanglement is a beautifully rendered tale of grace and renewal, of friendship and longing, of loneliness and spiritual aridity giving way to hope.
https://www.amazon.com/Edge-Sadness-Loyola-Classics/dp/0829421238?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0829421238
( “We’re living in a sensitive age, Cuke, and I’m not alt...)
“We’re living in a sensitive age, Cuke, and I’m not altogether sure you’re fully attuned to it.” So says Irish-American politician Frank Skeffington—a cynical, corrupt 1950s mayor, and also an old-school gentleman who looks after the constituents of his New England city and enjoys their unwavering loyalty in return. But in our age of dynasties, mercurial social sensitivities, and politicians making love to the camera, Skeffington might as well be talking to us. Not quite a roman á clef of notorious Boston mayor James Michael Curley, The Last Hurrah tells the story of Skeffington’s final campaign as witnessed through the eyes of his nephew, who learns a great deal about politics as he follows his uncle to fundraisers, wakes, and into smoke-filled rooms, ultimately coming—almost against his will—to admire the man. Adapted into a 1958 film starring Spencer Tracy and directed by John Ford (and which Curley tried to keep from being made), Edwin O’Connor’s opus reveals politics as it really is, and big cities as they really were. An expansive, humorous novel offering deep insight into the Irish-American experience and the ever-changing nature of the political machine, The Last Hurrah reveals political truths still true today: what the cameras capture is just the smiling face of the sometimes sordid business of giving the people what they want.
https://www.amazon.com/Last-Hurrah-Novel-Edwin-OConnor/dp/022632141X?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=022632141X
journalist radio commentator writer
Edwin Greene O'Connor was born on July 29, 1918, in Providence, Rhode Island, United States, the son of John Vincent O'Connor, a doctor, and Mary Greene. His childhood he spent in Woonsocket, Rhode Island.
Edwin O'Connor attended elementary school in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, United States. He entered La Salle Academy in Providence in 1931. Run by the Christian Brothers, the academy followed a classical curriculum. He entered the University of Notre Dame in 1935, intending to study for a career in journalism or perhaps the priesthood. Frank O'Malley, a young professor of English, inspired Edwin to study literature, and O'Connor then began to write. O'Connor also became an announcer at the college radio station. He received the B. A. cum laude in 1939, and in the autumn he returned for graduate study, but after one term gave it up.
After studying Edwin O'Connor joined station WPRO in Providence as a radio announcer, and he later worked at stations in Palm Beach, Florida; Buffalo, New York; and Hartford, Connecticut.
In September 1942, having been rejected by the army because of his poor vision, he enlisted in the United States Coast Guard. For two years he served as information officer at district headquarters in Boston under Louis J. Brems, a former vaudeville performer and once Boston's official greeter, whose stories about politicians O'Connor always treasured. In the Coast Guard, O'Connor began writing about his experiences but soon came to believe that a writer of fiction must finally rely on his imagination, not on events in his own life. Discharged from the service in September 1945, he joined station WHAC in Boston and the Yankee network as a writer and announcer.
However, in October 1946, O'Connor had concluded that "if you want to write, you should do it for yourself, alone. " He left radio to become a free-lance writer. O'Connor settled down in Boston, living in various boardinghouses and always in need of funds. Under the name Roger Swift, he wrote a radio and television review column for the Boston Herald and a few short pieces for the Atlantic Monthly. His first short story appeared as an Atlantic "first" in September 1947.
During 1948-1949 he worked with the Atlantic editor Edward Weeks, who had a weekly radio program. O'Connor's job was to listen to the rehearsal and criticize Weeks's delivery. Weeks said later that writing and producing radio shows had taught O'Connor "to write with his ears. "
In 1949, O'Connor taught a night course in writing at Boston College. Acquaintance with the Atlantic staff grew into a long association.
In 1951, O'Connor published his first novel, The Oracle, about a radio newscaster who uses pompous phrasing and careful conniving to achieve success. The novel, well received in England but not in the United States, shows O'Connor's gift for satire, his comedic insight into human folly, and the grace and humor of his objective style. O'Connor had made several attempts on a second novel when in January 1953 he suffered a severe hemorrhaging ulcer.
In March 1954, to recuperate and work at a more leisurely pace, he made his first trip to Ireland. On his return, Edward Weeks introduced him to Fred Allen, the radio comedian, who needed help editing his radio scripts into a book, and a lasting friendship developed.
In the autumn of 1954, O'Connor made a second trip to Ireland, this time with Allen and Portland Hoffa, Allen's wife.
In January 1955 he finished a new novel in time to meet the deadline for the $5, 000 award offered by Atlantic Monthly Press. First readers were critical, but Esther Yntema, also a staff reader, perceived its worth. The Last Hurrah (1956) won the award and became a best-seller; it was selected by five book clubs and later became a successful movie starring Spencer Tracy. It has been called the best American novel on urban politics. O'Connor aimed, he said, "to do for the Irish in America what Faulkner did for the South. " Writing about a nameless city in an imaginary commonwealth, he analyzed ordinary individuals who have achieved power and authority in church, government, or family but who have found difficulty in coping with change and with their obligations to others. In The Last Hurrah, Frank Skeffington is defeated for reelection as mayor of an eastern city and dies; he is a "tribal chieftain" who is defeated, not through corruption, but through a failure to recognize new centers of power.
In The Edge of Sadness (1961), which won a 1962 Pulitzer Prize, Father Hugh Kennedy loses his faith and turns to alcohol. The vitality of a family friend who probes the past keeps him from the edge of sadness and enables him to regain a sense of duty. In I Was Dancing (1964), both a play and a novel, O'Connor portrayed an aging and scheming vaudeville performer. All in the Family (1966) examines the erosion of family relations that are beset by death, political chicanery, and shifts in personal loyalties. Some reviewers thought that O'Connor's novels portray real people; O'Connor said that they did not. In depicting the ordeal of change in his imaginary Irish-Catholic community, O'Connor, a devout Catholic himself, had written not only about the Irish but about people everywhere.
O'Connor died in 1968 in Boston.
( “We’re living in a sensitive age, Cuke, and I’m not alt...)
( “A realistic Christian novel of hope in a non-Christian...)
(Hardcover: 434 pages Publisher: Little, Brown & Co.; Book...)
Quotations: "I could not believe in the joyous morning bound. It was disbelief well-founded: thirty-five years between then and now, and while I rise punctually I do so grudgingly; each morning brings its own renewal of the battle. .. ."
Being a genial companion with a merry wit and deep resonant voice, O'Connor loved talk, stories, and ideas; his near-perfect ear caught the lilt and cadence of Irish-American speech and enriched his natural gift for mimicry and dialect.
Success as a writer brought great changes in O'Connor's style of living. He bought a car, built a summer house, and rented a large house in Boston. After his father died in September 1956, he took his mother to Atlantic City to help her recover from her loss.
Although friends thought Edwin O'Connor a confirmed bachelor, on September 2, 1962, he married Veniette Caswell Weil.