Edwin O'Connor's "The Edge of Sadness"

Terry Teachout writes about Edwin, the other O'Connor. An excerpt:

Such popularity is not easily forgiven in certain cultural circles. Edmund Wilson, who knew O'Connor and admired him greatly, observed apropos of The Edge of Sadness that "a literary intellectual objects to nothing so much as a best-selling book that also possesses real merit." Small wonder that the book in question, like its author, is now all but forgotten...