Already a frequent contributor of well-crafted stories to The New Yorker when he turned to the larger canvas of the novel, John OHara wrote with unusual acuity about the power of status and class in American life. His reputation as a novelist rests largely on four extraordinary books published from 1934 to 1940. These early novels, like those of his contemporaries Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, dramatize the longings and dashed hopes of...

"Hereafter tells the story of Ellen O'Hara, a young woman emigrant from Ireland at the end of the nineteenth century who, with courage and resilience, made a life for herself in New York, firstly as a domestic servant and later in her own boarding house-all the while financially supporting those at home"--

"For almost twenty years, Rick Barot has been writing some of the most stunningly crafted lyric poems in America, paying careful, Rilkean attention to the layered world that surrounds us. In The galleons, he widens his scope, contextualizing the immigrant journey of his Filipino-American parents in the larger history and aftermath of colonialism. Here, Barot's poems are engaged in the work of recovery, making visible what is often intentionally erased:...

This book explores the life of men in various contexts: work, play, prayer, war, home, and friendship. Using essays and stories, myths and history, to bring life to the subject, Bennett defines what a man should be, how he should live, and to what he should aspire.