BUtterfield 8

BUtterfield 8 (1935) is a realist novel by John O'Hara. It is a roman à clef loosely based upon the life of socialite and flapper Starr Faithfull, whose unsolved death in 1931 became a tabloid sensation. Reviews were mixed but the novel was a best-seller. It was adapted for a 1960 movie of the same name, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Laurence Harvey. A paperback edition published at the same time sold more than one million copies. In 2019 it was one of four John O'Hara novels published in a collection by the Library of America. Synopsis The novel explores the life of Gloria Wandrous, a young woman having an affair with Weston Liggett, an older, married businessman. Set in New York circa 1931, it fills in her family background and sexual history, and it locates her within a circle of friends, their relationships, and economic struggles, providing a closely observed tour of "the sordid and sensational lives of people on the fringe of café society and the underworld". The minor character of Jimmy Malloy, a junior newspaper reporter, serves as O'Hara’s alter ego; he has the style of a Yale University graduate but not the means. The title of the novel derives from the pattern of telephone exchange names in the United States and Canada. Until the early 1970s, telephone exchanges were indicated by two letters and commonly referred to by names instead of by numbers, with the BU represented on the telephone dial as "28," followed by four digits. In December 1930, an additional digit was appended to the exchange name. BUtterfield was an exchange that provided service to Manhattan's well-to-do Upper East Side, and BUtterfield 8 was still new when the novel was published.