Dawn Powell
Encyclopedia
Dawn Powell was an American writer of novels and stories.
, a village 45 miles north of Columbus
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 re-married, 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
in Painesville, Ohio
, she wrote stories and plays, acted in college productions, and edited the college newspaper. After graduation, she moved to Manhattan
. Most of her subsequent writing would deal either with life in small Midwestern towns, or with the lives of people transplanted to New York City
from such towns.
On November 20, 1920, she met and married Joseph Gousha, an aspiring poet. In 1921, the couple had their only child, Joseph R. Gousha Jr. ("Jojo"), who was born mentally and emotionally impaired (possibly autistic
). Her husband abandoned poetry for the steady work of advertising, and the family moved to Greenwich Village
, which remained her home base for the rest of her life.
(1933), co-written and co-directed by Erich von Stroheim
.
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. In 1939, Scribner's became her publisher, where Maxwell Perkins
was 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
, wife of Henry Luce
. A musical adaptation of the novel, written by Tajlei Levis and John Mercurio, was staged in 2006 in New York City.
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 novel ends with news of the Bikini Atoll
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) and a vanished or deceased painter named Marius; and The Golden Spur (1962), set in a fictionalized Cedar Tavern
, 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 the charismatic painter Hugow.
.
Powell died slowly and painfully of colon cancer which afflicted her in 1964 and killed her the following year, in the same week as the first great New York blackout. She donated her body to the Cornell Medical Center, which offered to return parts of it five years later for burial. Her executrix, Jacqueline Miller Rice, refused to claim the remains, which were then buried on Hart Island
, New York City's potter's field
.
, Gore Vidal
, 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 at the Columbia University
Rare Books and Manuscripts Library in her beloved New York.
She is referenced in the Gilmore Girls
episode Help Wanted, wherein Rory expresses sadness over her relative obscurity.
Biography
Powell was born in Mount Gilead, OhioMount Gilead, Ohio
Mount Gilead is a village in Morrow County, Ohio, United States.Mount Gilead's population was 3,290 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Morrow County and the center of population of Ohio. The village was established in 1832, eight years after white settlers arrived in the region...
, a village 45 miles north of Columbus
Columbus, Ohio
Columbus is the capital of and the largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio. The broader metropolitan area encompasses several counties and is the third largest in Ohio behind those of Cleveland and Cincinnati. Columbus is the third largest city in the American Midwest, and the fifteenth largest city...
and the county seat of Morrow County
Morrow County, Ohio
Morrow County is a county located in the state of Ohio, United States. Shawnee people used the area for hunting purposes before white settlers arrived in the early 19th century. Morrow County was organized in 1848 from parts of four neighboring counties and named for Jeremiah Morrow, Governor of...
. 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 re-married, 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
Lake Erie College is a private liberal arts college that is located in Painesville, Ohio, approximately east of Cleveland. As of the 2010-2011 academic year, the enrollment was approximately 1200 undergraduates and graduate students....
in Painesville, Ohio
Painesville, Ohio
As of the 2010 Census, there were 19,563 people. As of the census of 2000, there were 17,503 people, 6,525 households, and 4,032 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,928.6 people per square mile . There were 6,933 housing units at an average density of 1,160.0 per square mile...
, she wrote stories and plays, acted in college productions, and edited the college newspaper. After graduation, she moved to Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
. Most of her subsequent writing would deal either with life in small Midwestern towns, or with the lives of people transplanted to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
from such towns.
On November 20, 1920, she met and married Joseph Gousha, an aspiring poet. In 1921, the couple had their only child, Joseph R. Gousha Jr. ("Jojo"), who was born mentally and emotionally impaired (possibly autistic
Autism
Autism is a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior. These signs all begin before a child is three years old. Autism affects information processing in the brain by altering how nerve cells and their...
). Her husband abandoned poetry for the steady work of advertising, and the family moved to Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
, which remained her home base for the rest of her life.
Novels
She had a prodigious output, producing 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 of. Throughout her life, she supported herself with various jobs, including freelance writer, extra in silent films, Hollywood screenwriter, book reviewer, and radio personality. Her play Walking Down Broadway was filmed as Hello, Sister!Hello, Sister!
Hello, Sister! is a 1933 drama film directed by Alan Crosland, Erich von Stroheim, Raoul Walsh, and Alfred L. Werker.-Cast:* James Dunn - Jimmy* Zasu Pitts - Millie* Boots Mallory - Peggy...
(1933), co-written and co-directed by Erich von Stroheim
Erich von Stroheim
Erich von Stroheim was an Austrian-born film star of the silent era, subsequently noted as an auteur for his directorial work.-Background:...
.
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. In 1939, Scribner's became her publisher, where Maxwell Perkins
Maxwell Perkins
William Maxwell Evarts Perkins , was the editor for Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe. He has been described as the most famous literary editor.-Career:...
was 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
Clare Boothe Luce was an American playwright, editor, journalist, ambassador, socialite and U.S. Congresswoman, representing the state of Connecticut.-Early life:...
, wife of Henry Luce
Henry Luce
Henry Robinson Luce was an influential American publisher. He launched and closely supervised a stable of magazines that transformed journalism and the reading habits of upscale Americans...
. A musical adaptation of the novel, written by Tajlei Levis and John Mercurio, was staged in 2006 in New York City.
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
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
. The novel ends with news of the Bikini Atoll
Bikini Atoll
Bikini Atoll is an atoll, listed as a World Heritage Site, in the Micronesian Islands of the Pacific Ocean, part of Republic of the Marshall Islands....
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) and a vanished or deceased painter named Marius; and The Golden Spur (1962), set in a fictionalized Cedar Tavern
Cedar Tavern
The Cedar Tavern was a bar and restaurant in New York City last at 82 University Place between 11th and 12th Streets. It was famous as a former hangout of many prominent Abstract Expressionist painters and beat writers...
, 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 the charismatic painter Hugow.
Old age and death
Later in life, Powell did most of her writing in an apartment at 95 Christopher StreetChristopher Street (Manhattan)
Christopher Street is a street in the West Village neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is the continuation of 9th St. to the west of its intersection with 6th Ave. The Stonewall Inn is located on Christopher Street, and, therefore, the street was at the center of New York's...
.
Powell died slowly and painfully of colon cancer which afflicted her in 1964 and killed her the following year, in the same week as the first great New York blackout. She donated her body to the Cornell Medical Center, which offered to return parts of it five years later for burial. Her executrix, Jacqueline Miller Rice, refused to claim the remains, which were then buried on Hart Island
Hart Island, New York
Hart Island, sometimes referred to as Hart's Island, is a small island in New York City at the western end of Long Island Sound. It is approximately a mile long and one quarter of a mile wide and is located to the northeast of City Island in the Pelham Islands group...
, New York City's potter's field
Potter's field
A potter's field was an American term for a place for the burial of unknown or indigent people. The expression derives from the Bible, referring to a field used for the extraction of potter's clay, which was useless for agriculture but could be used as a burial site.-Origin:The term comes from...
.
Revival
When Powell died, virtually all of her novels were out of print. Her posthumous champions included Matthew JosephsonMatthew Josephson
Matthew Josephson was an American journalist and author of works on nineteenth-century French literature and twentieth-century American economic history.-Biography:...
, Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal is an American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. His third novel, The City and the Pillar , outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality...
, and especially Tim Page
Tim Page (music critic)
Tim Page is a writer, editor, music critic, producer and professor. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic for the Washington Post and also played an essential role in the revival of American author Dawn Powell.-Career:Page grew up in Storrs, Connecticut, where his father, Ellis B...
, 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 at the Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
Rare Books and Manuscripts Library in her beloved New York.
She is referenced in the Gilmore Girls
Gilmore Girls
Gilmore Girls is an American family comedy-drama series created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, starring Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel. On October 5, 2000, the series debuted on The WB and was cancelled in its seventh season, ending on May 15, 2007 on The CW...
episode Help Wanted, wherein Rory expresses sadness over her relative obscurity.
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."
External links
- The Library of America Presents Dawn Powell; extensive information on Powell's life and works, along with commentary