‘Zero’ by John O’Hara

Zero by John O’Hara, 1963

The magic trick:

Complete characters conjured by conversations

It’s cold in today’s John O’Hara gem. It’s late at night. It’s dark. It’s quiet. It’s cold. It’s very cold.

And that’s just the setting. Wait until we get to the plot.

I won’t go into the details, but I will highlight that the story consists only of two conversations. You hear a lot about how O’Hara wrote dialogue in a brilliantly realistic way. Evidently, he would have told you that himself. But I don’t see it. The people I’ve met on this planet talk in clipped phrases. They stop and start thoughts. They say things that don’t make a lot of sense before finding their way back to the point paragraphs later. John O’Hara characters talk very clearly. Remarkably clearly, really. They get to the essence of their feelings with amazing efficiency. That’s not remotely realistic at all. It really isn’t.

But … I will agree that John O’Hara writes amazing dialogue. Again, this entire story consists of two conversations (and, truly, that’s the case with almost all his stories). The conversations don’t sound realistic. Instead, they are incredibly effective at conveying realistic feelings. They create rich characters and entire worlds that feel very true to life. And maybe that’s kind of what people mean when they say O’Hara writes realistic dialogue. But, anyway, I just wanted to specify my feelings. Great stuff, either way you slice it.

And that’s quite a trick on O’Hara’s part.

The selection:

“You don’t have to eat with me, if that’s what you object to. You don’t even have to let on you know me.”

“It isn’t that,” he said.

“Yes it is. You don’t want anybody to see me with you. Well, maybe I feel the same way, but first of all I’m hungry.”

“Maybe there won’t be anybody there.”

“Don’t be too sure of that. They’re liable to come in. The best thing is you take me there and I go in alone, then you come in a couple minutes later. We don’t have to leave together.”

“It’ll look fishy, you going in there alone on a night like this.”

“Listen, Dick, I didn’t ask you to meet me at the trolley. That was all your idea.”

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