O'Hara's novel tells a story of Joey Evans, another-mediocre club entertainer around Thirties Chicago. Inside the series of letters to "dear Pal Ted" from either "Pal Joey," he reveals himself to become an unmoral, calculative heel cloaked by an amiable persona. Joey's letters come written inside literate however uneducated English:

A 1940 musical comedy featured a book by John O'Hara, lyrics by Lorenz Hart and music by Richard Rodgers. It involved deuce songs that keep around get standards: I May Write the Book & Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered (see Great American Songbook). Directed by George Abbott, the opening-nighttime cast involved Gene Kelly, Vivienne Segal, Van Johnson, and June Havoc.

the play was a greater profits once revived inside 1952; it has also got revivals around 1963, 1976, and 1995.

A libretto's story is supplementary logical & sequent than a novel's. Joey Evans, as an unsympathetic anti-hero, occurs as striking departure from either a common musical-comedy formula. He casts off his girlfriend Linda, romances an older affluent woman, Vera Simpson, gets her to placed him higher within business by having his have nightspot. Verthe so becomes vulnerable to a blackmail attempt which is thwarted by Linda. Vera winds higher throwing Joey retired.

The loosely altered film version starring Frank Sinatra and Rita Hayworth was released inside 1957.