One of the participants for my Bibliophilic Books Challenge listed a curious title among their chosen books: Who the Hell is Pansy O’Hara? The Fascinating Stores Behind 50 of the World’s Best-Loved Books, co-written by Jenny Bond and Chris Sheedy. Intrigued by the title (just who was this Pansy O’Hara person anyway?), I placed a request for a copy from a local library, and it wasn’t long before I was reading and finding out for myself.

Each chapter is headed by the title of an author’s book, the period in which it was published, and the author’s name. Each vignette is a mini-biography, offering a brief background into the author’s life and what led him or her to write this particular book. Some of the details were enlightening or shocking, but many would be familiar to fairly well-read people (or English majors – my degree at work right there!) and so there weren’t a whole lot of surprises.

But here is what I’ve learned from reading this book: If you want to succeed as a literary great, your odds increase substantially if you:

– grow up in abject poverty, or, failing that, squander all your money and become penniless anyway;

– do poorly in school and should you decide to go to university, drop out before completing your degree;

– have a series of affairs or ill-fated romances intead of or in addition to being unhappily married;

– are a man, preferably American or English.

So, all in all, a diverting enough read for an afternoon but not one that particularly captured my interest. As for Pansy? Well, I’ll just say that the secret to her identity is in her name.