by Dawn Powell
First published 1999
This collection gathers Dawn Powell's personal selection of her strongest short stories, written across fifty years of her career. The pieces move between Ohio and New York, following characters caught between small town origins and urban sophistication. In "What Are You Doing in my Dreams?" Powell reflects on her own life through the lens of a country girl's transformation into a city dweller. "The Elopers" draws from her experiences with her troubled son, exploring the complicated bonds between parent and child. "Can't We Cry A Little?" captures the social dynamics of New York literary circles, while "Dinner on the Rocks" skewers Manhattan's social pretensions with Powell's characteristic wit. The stories examine romantic longing alongside sharp-eyed realism about human nature. Characters struggle with the gap between their dreams and reality, often finding themselves displaced between worlds they can neither fully embrace nor abandon.
Genres: short-stories, literary-fiction, american-fiction, 20th-century, contemporary
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: displacement, fish-out-of-water
Setting: New York, Ohio
Period: 20th Century
220 pages · Paperback · Steerforth