Dawn Powell had a brilliant mind and a keen wit and her humor was never at a finer pitch than in her diaries.
And yet her story is a poignant one - a son emotionally and mentally impaired, a household of too much alcohol and never enough money, and an artistic career that, if not a failure, fell far short of the success she craved.
All is recorded here - along with working sketches for her novels, and often revealing portraits of her many friends (a literary who's who of her period) - in her always unique style and without self-delusion.
Powell's remarkable Diaries will stand as one of her finest literary achievements.
About the Author: When Dawn Powell died in 1965, virtually all her books were out of print.
Not a single historical survey of American literature mentioned her, even in passing.
And so she slept, seemingly destined to be forgotten - or, to put it more exactly, never to be remembered.
How things have changed! Numerous novels by Dawn Powell are currently available, along with her diaries and short stories.
She has joined the Library of America, admitted to the illustrious company of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Adams, Frederick Douglass, and Edith Wharton.
She is taught in college and read with delight on vacation.
For the contemporary poet and novelist Lisa Zeidner, writing in The New York Times Book Review, Powell is wittier than Dorothy Parker, dissects the rich better than F.
Scott Fitzgerald, is more plaintive than Willa Cather in her evocation of the heartland, and has a more supple control of satirical voice than Evelyn Waugh.
For his part, Gore Vidal offered a simple reason for Powell's sudden popularity in the early Twentieth Century: We are catching up to her.
Dawn Powell was born in Mt.
Gilead, Ohio, on November 28, 1896, the second of three daughters.
Her father was a traveling salesman, and her mother died a few days after Dawn turned seven.
After enduring great cruelty at the hands of her stepmother, Dawn ran away at the age of thirteen an.
| Author | When |
|---|---|
| Century | We are catching up to her |
