Review by Choice Review
Though written by a comparatively minor novelist, these letters merit the attention of book lovers for three reasons. First, Powell resurrects her times with startling immediacy: in her correspondence with such fellow writers as Edmund Wilson and John Dos Passos, she has a tendency toward throwaway lines like "met an Irish playwright named Sam Beckett." Second, Powell dishes out world-class gossip, for example in her description of the tawdry behavior of Franz Kline's assorted lovers at the artist's funeral. Finally, the letters are howlingly funny, beginning with her 1919 description of herself as a suffragette canvassing an Irish neighborhood and telling the women that the Pope himself is for suffrage and that she has heard talk of a "lady pope." Page, also editor of The Diaries of Dawn Powell, 1931-1965 (CH Mar'96), calls this a "reading edition": he selected from the thousands of letters Powell wrote throughout a period in which she also wrote 15 novels. Though this reviewer hopes a scholarly edition of the letters will be published one day, he doubts that, letter for letter, it could beat this volume for celebrity sightings, juicy tidbits, and one liners. For graduate and research collections and for large general collections. D. Kirby; Florida State University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Few people can honestly say they have single-handedly resurrected an author's reputation, but through the efforts of Tim Page, the Pulitzer Prize^-winning music critic for the Washington Post, the novels of Dawn Powell are back in print and she is recognized as a vibrant mid-century literary voice. Page wrote Dawn Powell: A Biography (1998) and edited The Diaries of Dawn Powell, 1931^-1965 (1995) and now has compiled an entertaining and informative collection of her letters. We get a fine description of her college years, early days in New York, roller-coaster marriage to Joseph Gousha, and experiences raising her emotionally disturbed son, Jo-Jo. The arc of Powell's professional life is seen here, as well, in the letters she sent to some of the major literary figures of the period, including John Dos Passos, Maxwell Perkins (her editor at Scribner's), and Edmund Wilson. Academic libraries collecting American literature will certainly want this collection, but most other libraries can content themselves with Page's biography and copies of Powell's novels. --Nancy Pearl
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
A posthumous triumph, these letters are in many ways the perfect record of a difficult life lived with pluck, intelligence and verve. Powell (1896-1965) spent much of her youth shipped from relative to relative in small Ohio towns after the death of her own mother from a botched abortion. she worked and borrowed her way through a small women's school in Ohio, then arrived in New York's Greenwich Village in 1918. There she became involved in left-leaning causes and met Joseph Gousha, her future husband (later an advertising executive). Their marriage, which lasted until his death in 1962, withstood a series of catastrophes, periods of separation and love affairs. Both Powell and Gousha struggled with alcoholism; their only child, Joseph Jr. (Jojo), born in 1921, suffered from birth from what may have been autism or a combination of cerebral palsy and schizophrenia, and spent most of his life in state institutions; Powell survived a long battle with misdiagnosed cancer; and the family was perpetually short of money. Powell's wonderful satires of New York life (Turn, Magic Wheel; A Time to Be Born; etc.) never made her famous. But her letters (to Gousha, family in Ohio and friends like John Dos Passos, Edmund Wilson, Malcolm Lowry, Gerald and Sara Murphy, benefactress Margaret De Silver and editor Maxwell Perkins) record a sense of humor, a political acuity and a down-to-earth genius for friendship, love and getting by that is nothing less than invigorating. The great flaw of this volume is that there isn't more of it (all but one of the thousands of letters that Powell wrote to Jojo have been lost). What letters we have may win Powell even deeper admiration than The Diaries of Dawn Powell, edited by Page, or his Dawn Powell: A Biography. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
American author Powell (1896-1965) wrote witty, satirical novels about barflies and bohemians who flee to New York City from small-town America (e.g., The Locusts Have No King). Page (Dawn Powell: A Biography), the Pulitzer Prize-winning chief music critic for the Washington Post, continues his study of Powell's life and writing with this volume of selected letters. Written by Powell from the time she was enrolled at Lake Erie College until her death in 1965, the letters focus on the events and relationships significant to her career and personal life. Here we glimpse the young writer making her way through the heartbreak of caring for her ill son, the disappointment of a fizzling marriage, and the demands of her career as a playwright and novelist. Page has included a time line that should prove handy for readers unfamiliar with Powell's life and works. Recommended for regional public libraries where there is an interest and all academic libraries that have Page's first two studies of Powell.ÄJoyce Sparrow, Oldsmar Lib., St. Petersburg, FL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Witty, dishy, trenchant reports by novelist and short-story writer Powell to an array of correspondents, ranging from a young grandniece to Edmund Wilson, John Dos Passos, and Gerald and Sara Murphy. This collection begins with a teenage Powell's charming 1913 letter to her guardian/aunt, away on a trip, catching Aunt Orpha up on all the home doings, including Powell's efforts to make a peach pie and her new duties as editor in chief of the high school paper (``I need the experience if I intend to pursue a journalistic career.''). It ends with a letter to her adult nephew and friend, written less than a month before her death, but still full of news of theater, literature, and the foibles of friends. Powell was born and grew up in the Midwest but moved to New York City and established herself in the Greenwich Village of the 1920s and '30s, eating, drinking, and partying with famous and not so famous writers, musicians, and artists, as well as their patrons, editors, and publishers. She was no hanger-on, but a prolific and sometime successful author of novels about the contemporary New York scene (including post-WWII), as well as stories set in the Midwest of her childhood; for a time, Max Perkins was her editor. Her output also included plays, film treatments, short stories, magazine articles, and this voluminous correspondence, only part of which has survived. Devoted to her husband (although it appears she had at least one passionate extramarital affair) and her autistic son, in these letters, Powell reveals only a portion of the pain she suffered in raising her child. Editor Page (a Pulitzer Prize'winning music critic) seems to have made Dawn Powell his life's work: he has written a biography, edited her diaries, and successfully crusaded for the resurrection of her novels (most are again in print). If these pungent and brave letters are any indication, her novels are well worth a read.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
