Witty, dishy, trenchant reports by novelist and short-story writer Powell to an array of correspondents, ranging from a young grandniece to Edmund Wilson, John Dos Passos, and Gerald and Sara Murphy. This collection begins with a teenage Powell’s charming 1913 letter to her guardian/aunt, away on a trip, catching Aunt Orpha up on all the home doings, including Powell’s efforts to make a peach pie and her new duties as editor in chief of the high school paper (“I need the experience if I intend to pursue a journalistic career.”). It ends with a letter to her adult nephew and friend, written less than a month before her death, but still full of news of theater, literature, and the foibles of friends. Powell was born and grew up in the Midwest but moved to New York City and established herself in the Greenwich Village of the 1920s and “30s, eating, drinking, and partying with famous and not so famous writers, musicians, and artists, as well as their patrons, editors, and publishers. She was no hanger-on, but a prolific and sometime successful author of novels about the contemporary New York scene (including post-WWII), as well as stories set in the Midwest of her childhood; for a time, Max Perkins was her editor. Her output also included plays, film treatments, short stories, magazine articles, and this voluminous correspondence, only part of which has survived. Devoted to her husband (although it appears she had at least one passionate extramarital affair) and her autistic son, in these letters, Powell reveals only a portion of the pain she suffered in raising her child. Editor Page (a Pulitzer Prize—winning music critic) seems to have made Dawn Powell his life’s work: he has written a biography, edited her diaries, and successfully crusaded for the resurrection of her novels (most are again in print). If these pungent and brave letters are any indication, her novels are well worth a read.
Pub Date: Oct. 19, 1999
ISBN: 0-8050-5364-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2000
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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