BOOKS
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7,1962)
that Page calls "far and away the most sustained and seri–
ous critical appreciation to appear during her lifetime." But it was too
late. Powell's genre was passe, and her health was steadily deteriorating.
Reviewing
The Locusts Have
No
King
in
The New York Times
in
1
948,
Alice S. Morris placed Powell in proper perspective:
If
the art of satire at Miss Powell's hand is less baleful, knife-edged
and glittering than when Mr. Evelyn Waugh puts his hand to it, it
is equally relevant and more humane. In
The Locusts Have No
King,
Miss Powell pins down her locusts-some New York
barflies, bigwigs and gadabouts-with drastic precision, but never
without pity....The combination of a waspish sense of satire with
a human sense of pathos results in a novel that is highly entertain–
ing and curiously touching.
But lady novelists in this country were writing romances, not sophis–
ticated social satire. Furthermore, Powell lacked the elegant appeal of
F.
Scott Fitzgerald (also born in
J
896).
Indeed, Powell herself thought her
name sounded like "an unsuccessful stripper." She was, in fact, a fabu–
lously successful stripper-if we're talking about removing veneer from
the poseurs,
flclneurs,
and assorted dumbbell lettrists who were fodder
for her novels.
In a letter to Wilson, Powell wrote disdainfully of those who wrote to
posterity (Fitzgerald) and those who wrote to friends (Hemingway). But
if neither Powell nor her handlers knew how to reach an audience for her
books, Powell sure knew the audience for conversation and letters.
Her countless friends and admirers would attest that she was the wit–
tiest talker they'd ever met. The barbs, send-ups, neologisms, and
aperfus
in conversations that took place almost every sundown poured out once
the same had been done to a few drinks, accompanied by her irrepressible
laughter. Dawn Powell was sharper than a serpent's tooth and funnier
than Dorothy Parker. Parker was fragmented in mood and temperament
and credited with much that was not hers-Dawn was consistent.
Nothing can recapture the repartee-and there was no
l'esprit de
/'escalier
or
treppenwitz
with Powell-it popped like firecrackers on the
Fourth. And she studded her correspondence with the kind of conver–
sational asides that read the way people talk, if they happen to have
Powell's swift gift.
The first installment of the rediscovery and revival of Dawn Powell,
and the welcome fact that almost all her novels are now available,
began with Gore Vidal's celebrated and celebratory article in the
