Dawn Powell (November 28, 1896 – November 14, 1965) was an American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, and short story writer. Known for her acid-tongued prose, "her relative obscurity was likely due to a general distaste for her harsh satiric tone." Nonetheless,

Stella Adler Stella Adler (February 10, 1901 – December 21, 1992) was an American actress and acting teacher.
''

Clifford Odets Clifford Odets (July 18, 1906 – August 14, 1963) was an American playwright, screenwriter, and actor. In the mid-1930s, he was widely seen as the potential successor to Nobel Prize-winning playwright Eugene O'Neill, as O'Neill began to withdra ...

appeared in one of her plays. Her work was praised by

Robert Benchley Robert Charles Benchley (September 15, 1889 – November 21, 1945) was an American humorist best known for his work as a newspaper columnist and film actor. From his beginnings at ''The Harvard Lampoon'' while attending Harvard University, thro ...

in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'' and in 1939 she was signed as a Scribner author where

Maxwell Perkins William Maxwell Evarts "Max" Perkins (September 20, 1884 – June 17, 1947) was an American book editor, best remembered for discovering authors Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, and Thomas Wolfe. Early life and e ...

, famous for his work with many of her contemporaries, including

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fic ...

F. Scott Fitzgerald Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age—a term he popularize ...

and

Thomas Wolfe Thomas Clayton Wolfe (October 3, 1900 – September 15, 1938) was an American novelist of the early 20th century. Wolfe wrote four lengthy novels as well as many short stories, dramatic works, and novellas. He is known for mixing highly origin ...

, became her editor. A 1963 nominee for the

National Book Award The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The Nat ...

, she received an

American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...

Marjorie Peabody Waite Award for lifetime achievement in literature the following year. A friend to many literary and arts figures of her day, including author

John Dos Passos John Roderigo Dos Passos (; January 14, 1896 – September 28, 1970) was an American novelist, most notable for his ''U.S.A.'' trilogy. Born in Chicago, Dos Passos graduated from Harvard College in 1916. He traveled widely as a young man, visit ...

, critic

Edmund Wilson Edmund Wilson Jr. (May 8, 1895 – June 12, 1972) was an American writer and literary critic who explored Freudian and Marxist themes. He influenced many American authors, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose unfinished work he edited for publi ...

, and poet

E.E. Cummings Edward Estlin Cummings, who was also known as E. E. Cummings, e. e. cummings and e e cummings (October 14, 1894 - September 3, 1962), was an American poet, painter, essayist, author and playwright. He wrote approximately 2,900 poems, two autobi ...

, Powell's work received renewed interest after

Gore Vidal Eugene Luther Gore Vidal (; born Eugene Louis Vidal, October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012) was an American writer and public intellectual known for his epigrammatic wit, erudition, and patrician manner. Vidal was bisexual, and in his novels and ...

praised it in an 1987 editorial for ''

The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...

''. Since then, the

Library of America The Library of America (LOA) is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature. Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, the LOA has published over 300 volumes by authors rangi ...

has published two collections of her novels.

Life and career

Powell was born in

Mount Gilead, Ohio Mount Gilead is a village and the county seat of Morrow County, Ohio, United States. It is located 41 miles (66 km) northeast of Columbus. The population was 3,660 at the 2010 census. It is the center of population of Ohio. The village was esta ...

, a village 45 miles north of

Columbus Columbus is a Latinized version of the Italian surname "''Colombo''". It most commonly refers to: * Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), the Italian explorer * Columbus, Ohio, capital of the U.S. state of Ohio Columbus may also refer to: Places ...

and the county seat of Morrow County. Powell regularly gave her birth year as 1897 but primary documents support the earlier date. After her mother died when Powell was seven, she lived with a series of relatives around the state. Her father remarried, but his second wife was harsh and abusive toward the children; when her stepmother destroyed her notebooks and diaries, she ran away to live with an aunt, who encouraged her creative work. Powell later gave her childhood fictional form in the novel ''My Home Is Far Away'' (1944). At

Lake Erie College Lake Erie College is a private liberal arts college in Painesville, Ohio. Founded in 1856 as a female seminary, the college converted to a coeducational institution in 1985. As of the 2016–2017 academic year, the total enrollment was 1,177 stud ...

Painesville, Ohio Painesville is a city in and the county seat of Lake County, Ohio, United States, located along the Grand River northeast of Cleveland. Its population was 19,563 at the 2010 census. Painesville is the home of Lake Erie College, Morley Libra ...

, she wrote stories and plays, acted in college productions, and edited the college newspaper. After graduation, she moved to

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. Most of her subsequent writing would deal either with life in small

Midwestern The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...

towns, or with the lives of people transplanted to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

from such towns. On November 20, 1920, she married Joseph Gousha, an aspiring poet and advertising copy-writer. In 1921, the couple had their only child, Joseph R. Gousha Jr. ("Jojo"), who would today likely be diagnosed with autism. Her husband abandoned poetry for steadier work in advertising, and the family moved to

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

, which remained her home base for the rest of her life. The Village served as both inspiration and backdrop for most of her writing; some of the key locations in her fiction remain standing today.

Novels

Dawn Powell wrote hundreds of short stories, ten plays, a dozen novels, and an extended diary starting in 1931. Her writings, however, never generated enough money to live off. Throughout her life, she supported herself with various jobs, including being a freelance writer, an extra in silent films, a

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood, ...

screenwriter, a book reviewer, and a radio personality. Her novel ''Whither'' was published in 1925, but she always described ''She Walks in Beauty'' (1928) as her first. Her favorite of her own novels, '' Dance Night'', came out in 1930. The early work received uneven reviews, and none of it sold well. Her 1936 novel '' Turn, Magic Wheel'', the first work that received both critical acclaim and reasonably good sales, marked a turn to social satire in a New York setting. Her play ''Walking Down Broadway'' was filmed as '' Hello, Sister!'' (1933), co-written and co-directed by

Erich von Stroheim Erich Oswald Hans Carl Maria von Stroheim (born Erich Oswald Stroheim; September 22, 1885 – May 12, 1957) was an Austrian-American director, actor and producer, most noted as a film star and avant-garde, visionary director of the silent era. H ...

. In 1939,

Scribner's Charles Scribner's Sons, or simply Scribner's or Scribner, is an American publisher based in New York City, known for publishing American authors including Henry James, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut, Marjorie Kinnan Rawli ...

became her publisher and

became her editor. In 1942, Powell published her first commercially successful novel, '' A Time to Be Born'', whose central figure—Amanda Keeler Evans, an egotistical hack writer whose work and media presence are bolstered by the assiduous promotion of her husband, the newspaper magnate Julian Evans—is loosely modelled on

Clare Boothe Luce Clare Boothe Luce ( Ann Clare Boothe; March 10, 1903 – October 9, 1987) was an American writer, politician, U.S. ambassador, and public conservative figure. A versatile author, she is best known for her 1936 hit play '' The Women'', which h ...

, wife of

Henry Luce Henry Robinson Luce (April 3, 1898 – February 28, 1967) was an American magazine magnate who founded ''Time'', ''Life'', ''Fortune'', and ''Sports Illustrated'' magazine. He has been called "the most influential private citizen in the America ...

."In New York, Shows Can Be Slow or Fast in the Making"
Jason Zinoman, ''New York Times'', August 26, 2006. Retrieved July 30, 2011. A musical adaptation of the novel, written by Tajlei Levis and John Mercurio, was staged in New York City in 2006. After the war, Powell's output slowed down, but it included some of her most acclaimed New York novels, including '' The Locusts Have No King'' (1948), a portrait of the disintegration and eventual rekindling of a love affair against the background of the city and the onset of the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

. The novel ends with news of the

Bikini Atoll Bikini Atoll ( or ; Marshallese: , , meaning "coconut place"), sometimes known as Eschscholtz Atoll between the 1800s and 1946 is a coral reef in the Marshall Islands consisting of 23 islands surrounding a central lagoon. After the Second ...

atom-bomb tests. Two late novels show Powell's interest in the New York art world of the 1950s: ''The Wicked Pavilion'' (1954), an ensemble portrait of the characters orbiting around the Cafe Julien (a fictionalized Hotel Brevoort)Library of America essay by Gore Vidal (1987)
and a vanished or deceased painter named Marius; and ''The Golden Spur'' (1962), set in a fictionalized

Cedar Tavern The Cedar Tavern (or Cedar Street Tavern) was a bar and restaurant at the eastern edge of Greenwich Village, New York City. In its heyday, known as a gathering place for avant garde writers and artists, it was located at 24 University Place, ne ...

, in which a young man's search for the identity and history of his dead father brings him to New York, where he becomes involved with the circle around a charismatic painter, Hugow.

Old age and death

Later in life, Powell did most of her writing in an apartment at 95

Christopher Street Christopher Street is a street in the West Village neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is the continuation of 9th Street west of Sixth Avenue. It is most notable for the Stonewall Inn, which is located on Christopher St ...

. Powell died in 1965 of

colon cancer Colorectal cancer (CRC), also known as bowel cancer, colon cancer, or rectal cancer, is the development of cancer from the colon or rectum (parts of the large intestine). Signs and symptoms may include blood in the stool, a change in bowel mo ...

, fourteen days before her 69th birthday. She donated her body to the

Cornell Medical Center The Joan & Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University is Cornell University's biomedical research unit and medical school located in Upper East Side, Manhattan, New York City, New York. Weill Cornell Medicine is affiliated with N ...

, which offered to return parts of it five years later for burial. Her executrix, Jacqueline Miller Rice (1931-2004), refused to claim the remains, which were then buried on Hart Island, New York City's

potter's field A potter's field, paupers' grave or common grave is a place for the burial of unknown, unclaimed or indigent people. "Potter's field" is of Biblical origin, referring to Akeldama (meaning ''field of blood'' in Aramaic), stated to have been pu ...

Revival

When Powell died, virtually all of her novels were out of print. Her posthumous champions included

Matthew Josephson Matthew Josephson (February 15, 1899 – March 13, 1978) was an American journalist and author of works on nineteenth-century French literature and American political and business history of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Josephson popu ...

, and especially Tim Page, who joined forces with her family to free her manuscripts, diaries, and copyrights from her original executrix. The result was a revival in the late 1990s, when most of Powell's books were made available once more. Her papers are now in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library of

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in New York. Powell is referenced in the 2002 ''

Gilmore Girls ''Gilmore Girls'' is an American comedy-drama television series created by Amy Sherman-Palladino and starring Lauren Graham (Lorelai Gilmore) and Alexis Bledel (Rory Gilmore). The show debuted on October 5, 2000, on The WB and became a flagshi ...

'' episode "Help Wanted", in which Rory expresses sadness over her relative obscurity. That same year Powell was praised by the New York writer

Fran Lebowitz Frances Ann Lebowitz (; born October 27, 1950) is an American author, public speaker, and occasional actor. She is known for her sardonic social commentary on American life as filtered through her New York City sensibilities and her association ...

Book TV ''Book TV'' is the name given to weekend programming on the American cable network C-SPAN2 airing from 8 a.m. Eastern Time Sunday morning to 8 a.m. Eastern Time Monday morning each week. The 24-hour block of programming is focused on non-fictio ...

, in an episode titled The Best American Writer You've Never Heard Of. She is also referenced in the novel '' A Collection of Beauties at the Height of Their Popularity'' by

Whitney Otto Whitney Otto (born March 5, 1955) is an American novelist best known for her debut novel ''How to Make an American Quilt''. Life and career Otto was born and raised in California to a couple who later divorced; her father was an engineer, while h ...

. She is also referenced by novelist Alan Furst in his 2014 work ''Midnight in Europe.'' She appears as a character in several scenes of Vidal's novel '' The Golden Age''. More recently, she was referenced by novelist Michael Zadoorian in his 2020 book, ''The Narcissism of Small Differences.'' ''The Message of the City: Dawn Powell's New York Novels'' by Patricia E. Palermo was published in 2016. It is a compilation of most of the critical work done on Powell, in her day and in ours, and also looks at how she turned her everyday life, discussed in her diaries and letters, into fiction.

Awards

* 2015 — New York State Writers Hall of Fame *1964 — American Academy of Arts and Letters' Marjorie Peabody Waite Award for lifetime achievement in literature *1963 — National Book Award nominee

Quotes

*"Satire is people as they are; romanticism, people as they would like to be; realism, people as they seem with their insides left out." * "A novel must be a rich forest known at the start only by instinct." * "A capacity for going overboard is a requisite for a full-grown mind."

Bibliography

* 1925. ''Whither'' (novel). Boston: Small, Maynard. * 1928. ''She Walks in Beauty'' (novel). New York: Brentano's. * 1929. ''The Bride's House'' (novel). New York: Brentano's. * 1930. ''Dance Night'' (novel). New York:

Farrar & Rinehart Farrar & Rinehart (1929–1946) was a United States book publishing company founded in New York. Farrar & Rinehart enjoyed success with both nonfiction and novels, notably, the landmark Rivers of America Series and the first ten books in the Ner ...

. * 1932. ''The Tenth Moon'' (novel). New York: Farrar & Rinehart. (Reprinted in 2001 by

The Library of America The Library of America (LOA) is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature. Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, the LOA has published over 300 volumes by authors rang ...

as '' Come Back to Sorrento''.) * 1933. ''Big Night'' (play). * 1934. ''Jig Saw: A Comedy'' (play). New York: Farrar & Rinehart * 1934. ''The Story of a Country Boy'' (novel). New York: Farrar & Rinehart. * 1936. ''Turn, Magic Wheel'' (novel). New York: Farrar & Rinehart. * 1938. ''The Happy Island'' (novel). New York: Farrar & Rinehart. * 1940. ''Angels on Toast'' (novel). New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Reprinted in 1956 as ''A Man's Affair''. New York: Fawcett. * 1942. ''A Time to Be Born'' (novel). New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. * 1944. ''My Home Is Far Away'' (novel). New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. * 1948. ''The Locusts Have No King'' (novel). New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. * 1952. ''Sunday, Monday and Always'' (stories). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Reprint, 1999 (with four additional stories). Ed. Tim Page. South Royalton, Vt.: Steerforth Press. * 1954. ''The Wicked Pavilion'' (novel). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. * 1957. ''A Cage for Lovers'' (novel). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. * 1962. ''The Golden Spur'' (novel). New York: Viking. * 1994. ''Dawn Powell At Her Best'', ed. Tim Page. South Royalton, Vt.: Steerforth Press. * 1995. ''The Diaries of Dawn Powell, 1931–1965'', ed. Tim Page. South Royalton, Vt.: Steerforth Press. * 1999. ''Selected Letters of Dawn Powell, 1913–1965'', ed. Tim Page. New York, NY: Henry Holt & Company. * 1999. ''Four Plays,'' ed. Tim Page and Michael Sexton. South Royalton, Vt.: Steerforth Press. * 2001. ''Novels 1930-1942'', ed. Tim Page.

. . * 2001. ''Novels 1944-1962'', ed. Tim Page.

. .

References

External links

The Library of America Presents Dawn Powell
extensive information on Powell's life and works, along with commentary
Dawn Powell papers
at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University, New York, NY {{DEFAULTSORT:Powell, Dawn 1896 births 1965 deaths 20th-century American novelists American humorists American satirists American women novelists Deaths from colorectal cancer Deaths from cancer in New York (state) People from Mount Gilead, Ohio Novelists from Ohio American women dramatists and playwrights 20th-century American women writers 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights Women satirists American women non-fiction writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers Burials on Hart Island