by Dawn Powell
First published 1999
Dawn Powell writes her way through five decades of American literary life. Her letters begin in a small Ohio town and follow her journey to Manhattan's Greenwich Village. Powell corresponds with Edmund Wilson, John Dos Passos, and editor Max Perkins while building her career as a novelist and playwright. She supports her family through the Great Depression and two world wars, caring for an autistic son and alcoholic husband while battling her own health problems. Her correspondence reveals the daily struggles and triumphs of a working writer who produced fifteen novels, ten plays, and over one hundred stories. The letters capture her sharp wit and keen observations of literary New York. Powell emerges as a woman who balanced artistic ambition with family responsibilities, finding humor and resilience in the face of constant challenges.
Genres: american-fiction, 20th-century, american, biography-memoir
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, resilience
Setting: Ohio, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
Period: Great Depression, World War I, World War II
373 pages · Paperback · Henry Holt & Co.
Content warnings: addiction, mental-illness