Darcy O'Brien (1939–1998)

Author of A Way of Life, Like Any Other

19 Works 1,118 Members 20 Reviews

About the Author

Darcy O'Brien 1939-1998 Darcy O'Brien was an award-winning author of fiction and literary criticism born on July 16, 1939 in Los Angeles, California. O'Brien was best known for his work in the genre of true crime. His first novel, A Way of Life, Like Any Other, won the 1978 Ernest Hemingway award show more for best first novel. In 1997, O'Brien won the Edgar Allen Poe award for Power to Hurt. His other works include: Two of a Kind: The Story of the Hillside Stranglers, Murder in Little Egypt, Moment by Moment and The Hidden Pope. O'Brien attended Princeton University and University of Cambridge, and received a master's degree and doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley. From 1965 to 1978 he was a professor of English at Pomona College. In 1978 he moved to Tulsa, and taught at the University of Tulsa until 1995. On March 2, 1998, O'Brien died of a heart attack in Tulsa. (Bowker Author Biography) show less

Includes the names: Darcy O'Brien, Darcy O' Brien

Image credit: OK Center for Poets & Writers

Works by Darcy O'Brien

Popular Recent

A Way of Life, Like Any Other (1978) 310 copies

The Hidden Pope: The Untold Story of a Lifelong Friendship That Is Changing the Relationship Between Catholics and Jews… (1998) 231 copies

Two of a Kind: The Hillside Stranglers (1985) 223 copies

Murder in Little Egypt (1989) 175 copies

A Dark and Bloody Ground (1993) 64 copies

Margaret in Hollywood (1991) 28 copies

Power to Hurt : Inside a Judge's Chambers: Sexual Assault, Corruption, and the Ultimate Reversal of Justice for Women (1996) 28 copies

The Hillside Stranglers: The Inside Story of the Killing Spree That Terrorized Los Angeles (2017) 11 copies

American Murder: Three True Crime Classics (2017) 10 copies

Moment by Moment (1978) 9 copies

The Conscience of James Joyce (2015) 9 copies

The Silver Spooner (1981) 8 copies

W. R. Rodgers (1909-1969) (1975) 3 copies

El Papa Oculto (Spanish Edition) (1999) 3 copies

Patrick Kavanagh (1975) 2 copies

Une vie comme une autre (2016) 1 copy

Vivendo Cada Momento 1 copy

Tal para cual (1993) 1 copy

Reflections on Literature and the Law (1987) 1 copy

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Common Knowledge

Canonical name: O'Brien, Darcy
Birthdate: 1939-07-16
Date of death: 1998-03-02
Gender: male
Nationality: USA
Birthplace: Los Angeles, California, USA
Place of death: Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA
Places of residence: Santa Barbara, California, USA
Princeton, New Jersey, USA
Berkeley, California, USA
Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA
Pasadena, California, USA
Education: University of California, Berkeley (MA ∙ PhD)
Cambridge University
Princeton University (AB)
Occupations: professor of English
writer of multiple works of true crime
Relationships: Churchill, Marguerite (mother)
O'Brien, George (father)
Organizations: University of Tulsa
Pomona College
Awards and honors: Fulbright Fellowship

Members

Reviews

Two of a Kind: The Hillside Strangler by Darcy O'Brien

First edition

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RCornell | Oct 27, 2023 |

A Way of Life, Like Any Other: A Novel by Darcy O'Brien

A strange book that reads as a fictionalised autobiography of a boy growing up in 1950’s Los Angeles/Hollywood with parents who were in the movies, but had fallen on hard times (relatively) by the time he was a teenager.
The writing style feels detached and mannered, and Seamus Heaney in the introduction to my edition describes it as giving “a heightened, necessarily overdone picture of what his childhood and adolescence were like”. However, after the first few chapters I fell into the rhythm of the language and was moderately engaged, but the author seemed determined to intentionally undermine the emotional impact whenever created by his narrative.… (more)

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CarltonC | 7 other reviews | Feb 10, 2023 |

Murder in Little Egypt by Darcy O'Brien

I hate when I start a book and can't focus on it due to the narrator. Sometimes it's their ridiculous accents or the way they mispronounce a word, etc... I'm not sure exactly what it is about this narrator but I'm just not connecting. Maybe I'll actually read this one in print. I'm not doing the audiobook though. Two and a half hours in and I still can't connect.

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amoderndaybelle | 5 other reviews | May 27, 2021 |

A way of life, like any other by Darcy O'Brien

I disliked the first six chapters. Seven through eleven are probably the best in the book. Heaney's praise in the introduction seemed extravagant.