THE CAPE COD LIGHTER

Mostly short, but some longish, stories are introduced by O'Hara's back-of-my-hand reply to current fiction reviewing and its "spiteful condescension" and "abusive criticism" and his demand for more "speaking up...to the unimaginative... and dullards..." by fiction writers and readers. After this personally belligerent send off, word-weighing might seem to be in line. In the more than twenty inclusions however this author's ability to create characters and situations, in unpretentious words, is always evident while his knowledge of human flaws and failings in men and women and his inventories of the resulting tragedies, usually domestic, go deep. Grim he is, even in his humor; precise, too, with the shadings in relationships, of changes in them (Money); aware (The Bucket of Blood) of sensitivities where none might seem to exist; compassionate of a has-been (The First Day), of deviates (The Engineer and Jurge Dulrumple); and revealing (A Short Walk from the Station). Here although sex has its importance, set in his Gibbsville, Pennsylvania, homeplace and other areas, are good examples of O'Hara's work.