Dawn Powell: Novels 1944-1962 (LOA #127): My Home Is Far Away / The Locusts Have No King / The Wicked Pavilion / The Golden Spur (Library of America Dawn Powell Edition)

I read her book My Home Is Far Away in another edition, one of the best books I've ever read. Had to have more so I bought this volume as well as another from a different seller - and I am so pleased that both collections are printed by The Library of America. These printings are top quality - I will look for more in their catalogue. Thanks so much for introducing me to this publisher. I have read most of the classics and Dawn Powell's work belongs among them. Very glad to see her work so beautifully presented. A used book that is like new - what a lovely surprise. Thank you so much.

Book is just the title I was looking for, but I especially want to comment on the packing. Finally a book that was securely packed and the book arrived undamaged. Must have been an Amazon contractor, nothing direct from Amazon is done this well.

Bought this book after reading an essay about Dawn Powell by Gore Vidal, and have been enjoying reading her late novels a great deal.

Unpretentious, subtle, powerful.

This book is the second volume of the Library of America's compilation of the novels of Dawn Powell (1896 - 1965), a writer whose works have attained deserved if belated recognition. The first volume included five novels of Dawn Powell written between 1930 and 1942. This, the second, volume includes four of Powell's novels written between 1944 and 1965.Powell's earlier novels generally are set in small-town Ohio in the early 20th Century. They have as themes what Powell saw as the conformity and frustration, sexual and otherwise, of small-town life. The main characters in these books, typically young people, long to escape to make a new life for themselves in the city. The latter novels are, for the most part, set in New York City where Powell lived most of her adult life. The novels are comic and satirical, sometimes sharply so. They reflect loss of innocence and love and, on occasion, fall into cynicism.The first volume of the Library of America compilation included two early Ohio novels, "Dance Night' and "Come Back to Sorrento" and three novels reflecting Powell's change in style and theme and set in New York City, "Turn, Magic Wheel', "Angels on Toast", and "A Time to be Born." The second volume opens with a novel in which Dawn Powell returned to the setting of small-town Ohio. The book, "My Home is Far Away" (1944), is a fictionalized account of Powell's early unhappy childhood. The book offers a poignant picture of the death of Powell's mother and of her father's remarriage to a cruel and jealous stepmother. There are excellent scenes of the family wandering through cramped Ohio towns and small dusty hotels and back neighborhoods. The father himself is portrayed as a travelling salesman who generally behaves carelessly and irresponsibly to his three daughters. Powell initially planned this book as the first of a trilogy. This project did not materialize.In the next book in the collection, "The Locusts have no King"(1948), Powell returned to sharp satire and to New York City. The book is set after the conclusion of WW II and includes a memorable passage of reflection at the end on the United States atomic testing program at Bikini Atoll. The book contrasts the life of serious, scholarly writing and its difficulty with the life of superficial magazine publishing devoted to economic success and to popular culture. There is also a love story, serious to the participants, in which the main character of the book, a serious if unsuccessful scholar, becomes infatuated with a shallow, sexy blonde. This book reminded me of George Gissing's Victorian novel of the literary life, "New Grub Street" as well as of West's "Day of the Locust", which has some of the same themes and the same dark humor as does Powell's book.Powell wrote "The Wicked Pavilion" in 1954. Unlike most of Powell's works, the book appeared on the best-seller lists for a very brief time. The book is set in New York City in the late 1940s and celebrates, if that is the word, a bar called "The Cafe Julien", located in Greenwich Village, and its patrons. The book is full of would-be artists without talent, unhappy lovers, and people on the lookout for the main chance. It is sharp, astringent satire very close to disillusion. The book is well and convincingly written.Powell's final novel, and the last in this collection, "The Golden Spur" (1962) was nominated for the National Book Award. As does its predecessor, this novel centers around a drinking establishment which gives the book its title and its patrons. This book also is set in Greenwich Village in the 1950's and records novelistically the passing of an era. This novel, as are some of Powell's earlier works, is a coming-of-age story which tells the story of a young man who comes to New York City from Ohio to learn the identity of his father. In the process, the young man learns about himself as well. This book is impressive less for its story line than for the beautiful writing style Powell achieved in this, her last novel. The book is deliberately light in tone, and I think it ranks with Powell's best.Dawn Powell produced a substantial body of excellent work describing the places and lives (primarily her own) with which she was familiar. The qualities of growing up, coming-of age, searching and frustration, and the loss of innocence are all well portrayed. The descriptions of New York City, in particular, are themselves irreplaceable. Those readers who enjoy the pleasure of discovering a previously little-known writer will enjoy the novels of Dawn Powell.Robin Friedman

Gore Vidal's essay encouraged me to try Dawn Powell. I read 'Turn, Magic Wheel' and loved the sharp prose,great satire, and hearbreaking romance mixed into a vivid picture of Manhattan and Greenwich Village life in the 1930s.So I moved on to this anthology, and it is wonderful! It has 5 of her novels - 4 are her later wonderfully funny and sharpportraits of Manhattan - now from the late 40s to early 60s - and the first is a wonderful but tragically bittersweet memoirof her childhood (mildly fictionalized), "My Home is Far Away." Amazing that Powell was ignored for so long: as a stylist,only her friend Vidal is her equal (and that is in his essays, not in his often pedestrian novels), and her famed coevals - Hemingway,Fitzgerald, etc. - are not even close. One of the very greatest American authors, beyond a doubt. This book is a wonderful anthology and a great buy at any price.

Same as above, not being familiar with the authoress and buyingsomething that is not to my taste. to bad.

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