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A Reader Asks: Why Leave Out Dawn Powell?
Filed under: Letters & Challenges Tagged: books, Dawn Powell, Dorothy Parker, fiction
Europhile Bailey Alexander writes:
Cherie Emily,
My name is Bailey Alexander and my husband and I live in Paris with a second home in Malta, but still manage a business in Seattle, albeit long distance. I rarely go back to the States, but I love reading the blogs, like Wolcott’s, your own, Glenn Greenwald, and Daily Kos.
My point? Well, I’ve always been a fan of The New Yorker as well as Dorothy Parker, certo, but why the conspicuous absence of our/America’s greatest comedic writer, Dawn Powell? She was the real deal, where Dorothy was more of an “It” personality. Dorothy could do the quip, the perfect short story every now and then, but Dawn did the novel. The novel.
Gore Vidal and Hemingway always acknowledged her as our finest satire queen and give/gave her the due she deserves, but why don’t you? Your site could prove the perfect position to launch Powell from cult status to religion, n’est pas?
She was not celebrated by the publishers of her time because she didn’t write about the war, but rather chose to focus on women and men on the make in New York, mostly from the Midwest, basically, most of those that made New York happen, culturally. She was the original doyenne of Greenwich Village; her satire is unmatched by or rather only equaled by Evelyn Waugh, etc.
Just curious.
A fan.
Bailey Alexander
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Who she?
I'm Emily Gordon, reachable at emily@emdashes.com.
I'm an editor at PRINT magazine in New York City. I've worked at The Nation, Newsday, PEN America, and Legal Affairs. I've written for the NY Times Book Review, Salon, The Washington Post, The Village Voice... continued
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A few clips
- Report: Learning to read with comic books edited by Françoise Mouly (for Print)
- Interview: Designer Eleanor Grosch (for Print)
- Review: Charles Addams: A Cartoonist's Life by Linda H. Davis (for Newsday)
- Review: The King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Review: Does The New Republic's recent redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Proposal: A more attractive MetroCard (for A Brief Message)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Report: Eustace Tilley spruces up for The New Yorker's website redesign (for Print)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands (for Print)
- Review: books about various New Yorker cartoonists by Liza Donnelly and Iain Topliss (for Newsday)
- Profile: screenwriter and novelist Joe Keenan (for Newsday)
- Review: The Complete New Yorker (for Print)
Tell me more
They say that dashes “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like em dashes—emphasizes what’s between: in particular, between the lines, covers, and issues of a magazine close to my heart.
Primary sources
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Written and edited by Emily Gordon (plus various guest contributors), designed by Pretty, and illustrated by Inkleaf. Additional drawings by Carolita Johnson. Kissable pencil girl by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
The Rossosphere
- Mick Stevens: I Really Should Be Drawing
- Resistance Is Fertile
- The essential Jane Grant
- Newyorkette
- Matthew Diffee's HuffPo blog
- Sasha Frere-Jones
- The New York Public Library records
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- The New Yorker Magazine in the 1930s
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- I Hate the New Yorker
- Blog About Town
- Ben Yagoda's homepage
- Modern Spectator
- New Yorker Anti-Caption Contest
- Silence of the City
- Cartoonist Michael Maslin's homepage
- Chiasmus in The New Yorker
Comments
An example of Dawn Powell’s wit comes from the diary entry I published on my website on February 23.
Brian
Which is great. I also know, courtesy of our friend I Hate The New Yorker, that you reprint a 1946 memo from Harold Ross to E.B. White on your site this week. It begins: “I found your note about the BIDE-A-WEE HOME FOR VERBS idea two minutes after you left my office the other day, as expected. Hence I am reminded that you spoke of putting a notice on the bulletin board calling for nauseating verbs. I favor your doing this, and I hope the results will be successful.”
I love how long he goes on about the bulletin board. So, so funny.
Bailey Alexander is right! Powell’s novels chronicle the decline of respectability with enormous good humor.
Hi
Looks good! Very useful, good stuff. Good resources here. Thanks much!
G’night