Appointment in Samarrais a fast-paced, blackly comic depiction of the rapid decline and fall of Julian English. English is part of the social elite of his 1930s American hometown but from the moment he impetuously throws a cocktail in the face of one of his powerful business associates his life begins to spiral out of control - taking his loving but troubled marriage with it.

John O'Hara was born in Pennsylvania on 31 January 1905. His first novel,Appointment in Samarra(1934), won him instant acclaim, and quickly came to be regarded as one of the most prominent writers in America. He won the National Book Award for his novelTen North Frederickand had more stories published in the New Yorker than anyone in the history of the magazine. His fourteen novels includeA Rage to Live,Pal Joey,BUtterfield 8andFrom the Terrace. John O'Hara died on 11 April 1970.

'For all its excellence as a social panorama and a sketch of a marriage, it is as a picture of a man destroyed by drink and pride that Appointment in Samarra lives frighteningly in the mind' John Updike