The Diaries of Dawn Powell
1931-1965
Thirty-four years of a New York novelist's private record, published long after her death and largely responsible for her rediscovery.
Powell kept a diary for thirty-four years while writing the novels that almost nobody bought, and the record is of New York literary life seen from below the salt: the parties, the debts, the drinking, the work. Edited by Tim Page, whose championing brought her back into print, it is now often preferred to the fiction it documents.
Recommended by 1 Person
Fran Lebowitz
If you had asked me to choose New York novels, I would have had a very rough time choosing among hers. They are spectacularly good. She wrote two sets of books. One whole group of her novels is set in Ohio, where she’s from – they are also excellent. But the New York ones are funnier, they’re basically satires. You should read Dawn Powell’s novels and then read her diaries, or vice versa, it doesn’t really matter.
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