An O. Henry Holiday Season
To my surprise and delight, a lot of listeners to 4 Cents a Podcast really enjoyed the Halloween Special reading of Neil Gaiman's Coraline. Because of that, I thought it would be fun to try and do something similar for the Holiday Season in which we now find ourselves.
With that aim, I'm happy to announce a second holiday special mini-series on 4 Cents a Podcast I'm calling An O. Henry Holiday Season.
Now, I know what you're thinking: who's O. Henry and what the hell's he got to do with the Winter Holidays? I'm glad you asked, and I'll answer that question in a minute. First, let me explain my choice.
When I finally decided that I was going to do another Holiday mini-series on the podcast, I had some decisions to make.
I wanted it to be as different as it could be from the Halloween series, while still keeping in the spirit of what I'd done before. Aside from choosing a different writer, it became obvious to me that the best way to do this was to change the sort of thing I'd read. Coraline was one, continuous story that I was able to tell over the course of the seven days leading up to Halloween. So, I figured rather than doing that, I'd instead opt for reading seven, separate short stories. Then came the question of which author I'd pick. Well, just as Neil Gaiman's novella was in the spooky spirit of Halloween, I wanted to choose an author who, in some was, was in the spirit of this Holiday Season.
Much like Charles Dickens, O. Henry is so closely associated with the Holiday Season, and specifically with the holiday of Christmas, that most of us don't even realize it or take it for granted. It all comes down to one story he wrote and published in 1906 titled "The Gift of the Magi." The plot of this story, like many of the Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales, is so engrained in our culture that most of us will recognize it without knowing the name of the author or the original story. And, in fact, it's the story that's cemented O. Henry's posthumous reputation.
Yet, it wasn't his only story. It was just one of close to 600.
So what makes O. Henry so great and why should you care? Well, to begin with, he was a fantastic wordsmith and storyteller. His stories were clever, witty, and arguably popularized the "twist ending" technique that many short story writers, from Roald Dahl and John Collier to the writing staff of the original Twilight Zone, employed the technique regularly. In fact, one could argue that he was one of the most abiding influence on the American short story and helped to truly make it an American Art Form.
Washington Irving introduced it.
Poe polished and refined it.
Twain Americanized it.
But O. Henry modernized it.
Long before the short stories of Hemingway, Salinger, Updike, or Carver graced the pages of American Magazines, O. Henry's stories filled them. In a publishing career that lasted only 11 years (1899-1910), this year his first story appeared until the name O. Henry to the year of his death, O. Henry took the American wit and language of Mark Twain, and the American-centric viewpoint, and placed that spotlight on Urban America.
City People, particularly the underdogs, ne'er-do-wells, and low-lifes, became his great subject. New York City, where he lived for that last stretch of his life, became to him what London was for Charles Dickens: a magic lamp full of characters and situations. His most famous collection of pieces, The Four Million, was (and is) a love-letter to the city. But he also wrote about westerners before there were westerns and southerners before Southern Gothic was a thing
Is it any small wonder the O. Henry Award, for achievement in short story writing, is still named in his honor?
Yet most people, these days, don't read him much anymore. Maybe it's because his stories are densely written in language that might seem arcane to our ears now, or perhaps its because, compared to contemporary writers, his characters seem a bit flat. The reasons are varied, but I don't care. His writing and his stories, however, continue to endure. If you can write a story that seeps into the collective unconscious of your culture, and persists, 110 years after you've died, that's a sign of powerful writing.
So, with all that in mind, for the seven days leading up to Christmas Eve, starting this coming Friday December 18th, I'll be posting one episode each day, each featuring a reading of an O. Henry story, with the final one, of course, being "The Gift of the Magi." And, as usual with my Reader's Corner style shows, I'll also include a little bit of biographical info each time about Porter's life, which, to me, is just as a fascinating as his work is fun. It's only a small sampling of his massive body of work, but it might even make you interested enough in him to go read some more of his stuff for yourself.
Stay tuned, enjoy, and Happy Holidays to you all.
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