A Time to Be Born

by Dawn Powell

Set against an atmospheric backdrop of New York City in the months just before America’ s entry into World War II, A Time To Be Born is a scathing and hilarious study of cynical New Yorkers stalking each other for various selfish ends. At the center of the story are a wealthy, self-involved newspaper publisher and his scheming, novelist wife, Amanda Keeler. Powell always denied that Amanda Keeler was based upon the real-life Clare Boothe Luce, until years later when she discovered a memo she’d written to herself in 1939 that said, “Why not do a novel on Clare Luce?” Which prompted Powell to write in her diary “Who can I believe? Me or myself?”

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Humor, New York, Literary Fiction, Novels, Womens

344 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1942

About the author

Dawn Powell was an American writer of satirical novels and stories that manage to be barbed and sensitive at the same time.

Reviews

[karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

dawn powell is one of the best authors you have never read. and i know you haven't read her, or more of her books would be in print. this one is out of print. and when i found it at one of the best used bookstores i have ever been to, along with another of her titles that i needed, i squealed loudly and grabbed them and smoooshed them to my chest as though there were other people around who would have fought me for them. there weren't. they wouldn't have. no one reads her. i bought one of her books for david, and he hasn't read it yet either.

i don't know what to do anymore. do i need to bribe you?

the best i can do is tell you that you should read her, but ultimately it is up to you.

this book is not among my favorites, but it is still very very good. what dawn powell does is write about new york artists and social climbers and wastrels of the thirties and forties, and the way they betray one another and coolly conduct their lives while disregarding the feelings of others. and when you find out that many of these characters are based on real people she knew (like hemingway), how are you going to keep saying "no"??

this novel features a woman from small-town poverty hiding her past, marrying well, and allowing her husband to arrange her "successes" and hire people to write the work she becomes known for, all the while resenting him and carrying on an affair with an old flame. meanwhile, a friend from the old days runs away from a broken heart to the big city and both enables and complicates amanda's affair. other things happen, there are highs and lows, but this one just didn't sparkle for me like the wicked pavilion or the locusts have no king, which were two of the finest books i have ever read.

i feel that with my birthday, and mockingjay and various other distractions, dawn powell did not get the attention from me that she deserved. but i suppose she is used to that, right??

i would love for her to become the secret darling of goodreads.com let's get classy, okay?


p.s.: who's cuter than dawn powell??



come to my blog!

[Sketchbook · Rating 5 out of 5]

For Dawn Powell, "Good taste is the consolation for people who have nothing else." Her rapier wit stabs deeply into the pretensions of NYC publishing and its distasteful social whirlpools. Central figure Amanda Keeler is a malign, albeit beautiful, careerist who knows "there are so many things to be gained by trading on sex, and she thought so little of the process," yes -- she must use it again. After marrying the publisher of 16 newspapers she manages and manipulates him as he does her. The result: a mass of misunderstandings and misinformation, but let's not worry: there's another dinner party tonight for the "somebody's" and smile, every hello must have its payoff. The only thing that can hurt is anonymity.

Amanda pretends to welcome a girlhood friend from Ohio in order to reignite a pash w a "nobody" studlet whose ladder for climbing upward is propped against nothing. The confused fella, a sometime editor, believes that "any one foolish enough to make the world his oyster is courting ptomaine." These players are always staggered by "the slightest evidence of human civility." The New Face from Ohio, a reluctant virgin at 26, is ready to be plucked.

Praising Dawn Powell, Edmund Wilson wrote that she died (1965), mostly unread, because women could not identify with her characters.Her ingenue is a simpleton, her fella is a moral weakling and Amanda - inspired, it's said, by Clare Boothe Luce - is a monster. If so, this is the book's problem: Amanda lacks the dangerous charm that radiated from Mrs L like nuclear energy.

Powell's writing has been likened to that of Muriel Spark: deadly,deadpan and without sentiment. When a ditzed deb tells mum that her fiance is "a terrible bore," the ambitious parent cautions, "You mustnt say things like that -- not until you're married!"

[Mariel · Rating 3 out of 5]

We are gathered here today to remember Amanda Peeler. She was never born and yet she is dead where she lives, in the word of mouth. Mouth watering greed and the words rasp out in ill will (cause of the no saliva, y'know). Will anyone stand up and remember her to the audience? Oops, I meant grievers. Or did I mean audience? The body is in the casket in expensive hosiery and a hat. Stockings, gloves, underwear made of silk. It could have all been worth it for those. Don't forget the perfume! The hands are folded so to avoid being asked for handouts on the voyage across the river styx (can she afford first class? They count how many show up to your funeral. It's not money, you know). Photo op moments are behind the podium in their decorative frames (hey, those could have gone to the war effort!). Will anyone step out of those photographs to remember the smiling woman on their arm? Say cheese and get some cheese, please. Silver spoon mouths aren't good for speaking clear and true. Handouts and hands on arms. That's not too good for sign language speech either (hey, the bird is vulgar for a lady!). That was Amanda Peeler's life and press release. We are gathered here today to remember how nice it is to have nice underwear, and what is so awful about looking out for the underwear on one's own bum anyway? Amanda Keeler looked rich. Town meeting instead of a funeral! Do we want people who aren't rich to get rich? Looking good is all about money, right? What is money anymore? Is it underwear, good looks, sex (no one has good sex in 'Born'. It's a status thing. Remember what Morrissey said about the riches of the poor?), a good reputation? We are gathered here to debate what Amanda's reputation was anyway. If it was money why couldn't it just sit in the bank and collect interest? Did anyone truly care? Sob!

Dawn Powell speaks with a clear voice to remember the woman who stepped in and out of those photographs. Thank goodness! I was trying to avoid the eye of the lady with the whole ostrich on her head. Remember charity that wasn't for the cameras to roll and two large for a plate of food Yoko Ono wouldn't even give her wealthy husband? The hand isn't out. Hand on the heart for the truth! Yes, I swear... Powell has a wry accent that I can't quite place where it comes from. I knew it was going to happen movement of the lips that gives the vowels a downturn and please surprise me and have hidden humanness uplift for the consonants. Not the photographs, not the shadows. Someplace where something grows. Did she grow up with the deceased? I don't think so. There are no trees in New York! Amanda didn't have much of a sense of humor, unless it was a flash of an I told you so smirk. The happiness of the unimaginative. The despair of the unimaginative. Amanda wanted to live in photographs where the underwear was always brand new. I could listen to Powell's voice all day. The photographs move like a motion picture. Remember those? When they were hand drawn and someone cared to get the expressions right. A smile and a frown and I thought about it some more and maybe I don't want to smile I want to laugh through my tears. I am a sucker for accents of new places and hand drawn expressions. If she would stay up on that podium and remember everyone... Maybe she could be an artist in a court room and put all their asses on trial. Amanda wasn't the villain of the thing. It meant a lot to me to feel the same surprise and I know that, that's so right feeling of what happens to the people from Lakeville (the horrible place where people knew you when you ran amok outside without underwear). I wanted to yell at Ethel for thinking that she had the right to out Amanda about her self perpetuated myths of a fancy background. I rooted for naive Vicki until she became boring and nestled in Ken's arms. Ken wasn't real enough for me because he didn't try to live outside someone else's photograph. That's the frown of unsurprise. Vicki is the hope of at least looking past the front page and then the frown. I didn't hope for Amanda but the smile that was a hope for surprise... That's pretty much why I like Powell's writing. She describes stuff and it's like watching people for the chance that they are going to surprise you. That's the kind of writing that I value the most. I want to be in the story and use my own heart and hope to figure out what the people are all about. If you tell me what they are feeling and there's no room for negotiations I will yell order in the court. Turn off the flash. (Okay, that's enough camera analogies for one review.)

The thing about funerals is that they are for the deceased. Where are they gonna go? Amanda isn't going to heaven. She'd hate it there because you can't go any higher. That leaves hell and I don't know if my own accent would've said that for Amanda. Maybe there was something better for her than new underwear and book deals. What did she want to earn? I would have said something better than Ken Saunders (Vicki bored me as soon as she hooked up with Ken!). I don't think the ending blew me away (soooo boring! Could they have been more settling kind of settled?). Powell put me there, though, and I liked that a lot. I'll be reading more of her books (Karen said that this wasn't her best. If this isn't her best and it is pretty damned good that's what I'd call a good sign).

p.s. "Powell always denied that Amanda Keeler was based on the real-life Clare Boothe Luce, until years later when she discovered a memo she'd written to herself in 1939 that said, "Why not do a novel on Clare Luce?" Which prompted Powell to write in her diary, "Who can I believe? Me or myself?"
I saw this quote on Emilie's to-read page for this book. I have to say... Awesome. I believe that this wasn't a send-up for a real life person who may or may not have behaved like a covetous socialite. A Time to Be Born is more than a socialite novel! To call it such is making it seem like something it isn't. It's the accent of let's take a look at what the hell these idiots are getting up to. In a gathering. Was booze still illegal? I think so... I don't remember. (If you want people to go to your funeral/gathering you should have booze.)

P.s.s D'oh I had meant to say all along that I read on amazon that Powell's books were mean spirited and I hope that anyone who looks up this book on goodreads will believe me that it is totally not true. I don't care if Amanda lost it and wanted Ken (blame the lack of imagination). It's a what is so bad about the time between being born and dying that you figure out what you want? (I'm imagining what Powell could have done with people who had imagination...) Maybe you don't have to start from somewhere to end up with a story worth talking about at the ultimate funeral party. (My funeral had better be packed!) So it could have ended with some place else to go...

P.s.s.s. There is a woman in a veil in the back... Was Amanda secretly a lesbian? She did spend an awful lot of time in women's hosiery... That would explain her taste in anatomically correct Ken doll Saunders. He was so boring! Did I mention that? Like a reject from an Audrey Hepburn movie.

[robin friedman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A New Life

This magical novel was published in 1942. Unlike most of Dawn Powell's earlier novels, it sold well and went through several printings. Although Powell denied it, one of the major characters of the book, Amanda Keeler Evans, is based in part on and satirizes Claie Boothe Luce. These external details say little about the appeal of this novel.

As with most of Dawn Powell's books, "A Time to be Born" talks about New York City and its effect on young men and women who meet their chances there from small towns in the Midwest. The book's two main characters, Amanda Keeler Evans and Vickie Haven, come to New York City under different circumstances and with different results after being girlhood friends in the town of Lakeville, Ohio.

On the verge of WW II, Amanda has become a success by publishing a schmaltzy romantic novel and hobnobbing with the powerful under the guidance of her husband, Julian, a newspaper magnate. Amanda has married her way to success with Julian but with success will not touch much less sleep with him.

Vicky Haven comes to New York at the peak of Amanda's success to escape the memory of a failed affair in which she has lost her love to her business partner. She is put up, begrudgingly, by Amanda who uses her pad to entertain the lover, Ken Sanders, that she jilted to marry Julian. Amanda takes the fancy pad for Vicky to have an excuse to have an affair with Ken on the side.
The climax of the book occurs when Vicky decides to leave Amanda's fancy pad and lease an apartment of her own. No luxury this. It is a cold-water flat on the fourth floor of a dilapated building surrounded by warehouses and with a pet shop on the lower floor. But it is Vicky's and it is where her life begins. Powell writes: "She only wanted to be alone with her new house so definitely hers, because nobody, Amanda, Ethel, brother Ted, Eudora Brown, Ethel Carey, nobody would ever have selected it for her, and so it was the beginning of her own life." There is magic here, in life beginning anew, with self-affirmation and choice, even if, and especially if in Powell, the outcome is uncertain and the scene itself is partially ironic.

In addition to the theme of having one's own start at life, the book paints a memorable picture of New York on the eve of WW II. The book juxtaposes the lives of the rich, famous and powerful -- their self-importance, their officiousness, their concern for the weighty matters of peace and war -- with the lives of the "little people" who, as Powell describes them, "can only think that they are hungry, they haven't eaten, they have no money, the have lost their babies, their loves, their homes, and their sons mock them from prisons and insane asylums, so that rain or sun or snow or battles cannot stir their selfish personal absorption.". The little people have little to do with the fate of nations. Specifically in the book, Vicky is concerned not with affairs of state or with the rich and famous. She is concerned with love -- with the love she lost in Lakeville -- and with finding herself and a new love in New York City.

The characters in the book are masterfully drawn from Amanda and Vicky to many of the secondary characters such as Amanda's assistant Bemel and vicky's elderly would-be lover Rockman. New York City is depicted memorably, as elsewhere in Dawn Powell's writings. In this book, the best depictions are those of the cold water flats of Grenwich Village -- of the place that Vicky finally finds to try to find a life.

As with most of Powell's novels, this book is a satire. But in this book it is more delicate, more tinged with understanding and compassion, than is the case in some of her novels. The feelings that the book brings for its characters is the source of its magic. There is a sense of foreboding and irony in the book, but little cynicism and anger. The book occupies that fragile point at which a person is able to act on her ideals and attempt to find a life for herself -- without moving into the line that determines whether or not the effort will end in succe

"A Time to be Born" is a wonderful, little-known American novel.

Robin Friedman

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply put, a cracking-good novel! Dawn Powell has such sharp insight into human nature - and, here, she whips what she knows into one of her best works. (Apparently the public thought so as well; when the book was published, it became a bestseller - not something Powell often managed to do, alas.)

Decades later, this novel still holds a great deal of its potency (and wit). I'm not sure what else to say (I'm a bit speechless, really) except that I flew through and I loved it! Chef's Kiss!

[Kristopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Go to the bookstore or library and buy a Dawn Powell novel now.

You have no excuses anymore. You've never heard of her until now. And now that you have, you must read her.

Dawn Powell's A Time to Be Born is a vicious indictment of the intelligentsia of 30s and 40s New York society. Scratch that. It's a vicious indictment of society period. Imagine a Theodore Dreiser novel (I'm thinking Sister Carrie). Now imagine that Theodore Dreiser novel written by Jane Austen. Now imagine every character in that Jane-Austen-written Dreiser novel utterly drunk, defensive, and self-deceived. Throw in a dash of Vonnegut/Wilde-an wit and you have an idea of what a Dawn Powell novel reads like.

If you like Modernist fiction, especially Modernist fiction featuring loads of drunken, broken people, read A Time to Be Born. Just read it. You're not going to regret it.

[Jon Zelazny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Caustic, merciless indictment of American bourgeois boorishness, social climbing, and money-stupidity. I'll bet even Sinclair Lewis was like, "Whoa, now just hold your horses there, little lady!"

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

an ecstatically mean book, I mean really ecstatic, a dionysian kind of of meanness. thought multiple times "I cannot believe she still had friends after this came out", not because of the specific satires of publishing, new york, etc (which are great!) but because after one of her dinner-party scenes you feel as if you are in the car home with her, listening to her dissect the guests with such surgical pitiless intensity that you, though no stranger to gossip, are really shocked—but without that sense of confiding conspiracy with the reader that this kind of thing usually evokes. she is so absolutely self-possessed, so independent in thought and judgment, that you feel privileged but very threatened that you have come under her eye. also, exactly the kind of romance I like (unromantic)

edit: also, amanda is a lesbian

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

A perfect gin martini of a novel: biting, ice-cold, & leaves you wondering wtf you just experienced.

[Read #3 of "2021: My Year of (Mostly) Midcentury Women Writers"]

[Realini Ionescu · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Time to Be Born by Dawn Powell
10 out of 10


This stupendous novel has been forgotten in spite of the outstanding value, recognized through the inclusion on The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read list, but without even a Wikipedia page on the Internet.

If you google it, you find first a page that has three references and if you click the book, Wikipedia asks you if you want to create a page, whereas on goodreads it has a paltry 80 reviews - now 81 - and 639 (640 today) ratings...compare that with the Dan Brown concoctions.
Vicky Haven is the main character of the narrative, in that she is the Wonder Woman we root for, while her childhood "friend", Amanda Keeler Evans could be listed as the villain leading the cast, a presumptuous, arrogant, self absorbed, selfish, without a solid education, in spite of the adulation she enjoys for an undeserved period of time, ruthless to the point of stepping on the bodies of anyone close or stranger to get what she wants...and if she wants something, she must have for she surely deserves it...this is what she thinks anyway.

When Amanda Keeler meets the publishing and newspapers magnate Julian Evans, he is married to Margaret Evans and he is a rather boring, limited, inexperienced man, who falls under the siege of the cunning woman who takes advantage of the fact that the wealthy husband has never met any woman with this boldness, audacity and willingness to use her sexual allure to seduce him.
This Potentate marries Amanda, launches her career on an orbit of incredible success, literary, social and otherwise, for the book he publishes is not written by her, but it has her name on the cover, just as articles written in his newspapers are signed by her, but in reality belong to others, such as Cheever, for many years the representative they have in London, who provides the material, insight, perspective on British affairs that are then explained to the readers by Amanda Keeler Evans.

Amanda has been raised in a rather modest family in Lakeville, although she would pretend for years to have benefited from private education as the scion of a rich family, and at one point, a former friend, Ethel Carey comes to ask for help in the case of Victoria 'Vicky' Haven, who has fallen in love with the wrong man, again, and needs to rescued and brought to New York.
The moment is auspicious, for Mrs. Evans is bored with her husband, has just met a former lover, Kenneth 'Ken' Saunders, and wants to reignite that affair and use a studio in town, which she would pretend to her spouse she needs for her protégé, arriving from a small town to the Big Apple.

The writing of Dawn Powell is fantastic, amusing, a joy to read and here are some examples:

She felt she had hay on her head...one had eyebrows painted in perpetual surprise...her agonized Alice Adams efforts to pretend she was reserving the seat failed...Vicky had such a raincoat, as if she were expecting a tidal wave...when he saw her, Ken said...hi neighbor, going fishing...she responded no, I'm off to the Embassy ball.

The penetrating, perceptive style describes the snobbishness of personages like the Elroy's, who entertain those who have a connection with the wealthy, the aristocracy or both and introduce Vicky to their inner circle, just because she was a childhood friend of the great Amanda, and when relations between the two sour, they discard, even hate her, because the uncle that is paying for their livelihood and excesses wants to marry Miss Haven.
Vicious Mrs. Evans is using her friend as a decoy, to seduce Ken Saunders, have an affair with him in the studio that Vicky is using only when she is not at work, but on account of this restraint and wishing to become free of the shadow, the naive, innocent young woman causes the celebrity to get mad, when she hears that her cover would no longer hold, for the childhood friend is moving out.

Amanda insults Vicky in front of all the guests she has at this dinner party, for she cares for no friend, nobody except herself, even Ken Saunders, for whom she is supposed to keep the studio, is not important for her, except in that she wants to conquer him, to make him accept her domination, she does not love him or anyone else.
As an accident, she becomes pregnant when she thought she is sterile and knowing that their regular doctors would inform Julian, Amanda comes to the woman she has abused, used as a coverup to help her with an abortion.

Vicky is such an angelic character that, instead of telling this nemesis to go away, especially given that she is now in love with Ken and the two of them have a chance to mend their lives after this rich, spoiled villain has played with them, she accepts to help.
There is a complicated ménage a trois for a while, Evans finds that his wife has been cheating, although the hired detective has the wrong culprit and there are confrontations on some fronts...between Amanda and her husband and lover, with Bemmel, while poor Vicky has a hard time with the foolish, preposterous Elroys that are critical of Hitler, only in that he was not born in a good family, sang on the streets...were he to have noble origins, the Elroys and many like them would have embraced him.

A Time to Be Born may yet receive the acclaim, admiration, rise to fame it deserves so much more than vainglorious, syrupy or just clever works like the ones signed by Dan Brown.

[Iris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dawn Powell has been consistently a pleasure to read.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been recommending Dawn Powell for years without really reading her which I know is a bit of a problem. But it turns out, I was right - this has all the details, plot points, tone and threw just the right amount of shade. Can't wait to discuss with my reading group.

[A · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another brilliantly dishy masterpiece served up by the genius that is Dawn Powell. This is the best-known of Powell's cocktail-swilling New York demimonde novels, and it is definitely the most accessible. And while Angels on Toast is my personal favorite because I think it's her most sophisticated project, I think this is her best written work -- the characters are flawlessly drawn, the pacing is impeccable, and her patented balance of scathing satire with heartfelt insight is here effortlessly, perfectly calibrated. To read this book is a true unalloyed pleasure, and it's literally true that they don't make them like this anymore -- Powell seems to inhabit her own one of a kind writerly world and every excursion I've taken there has been memorable.

Most crucially, this book now takes its place alongside James Agee's A Death in the Family as having the most exquisitely written prologue of any book ever. The first 10 pages of this book are a wonder, depicting everything wonderful and infuriating about city life and New York City life specifically in a few broad strokes. Of course, while Samuel Barber wrote on of the most beautiful musical works in any language based on Agee's prologue -- Knoxville, Summer of 1915, the song that will be sung at my funeral fyi -- no one has as of yet done that for Powell.

[Cherise Wolas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dawn Powell is one of my favorite writers. She has a wonderful eye, a tart mind, great sentences, and she's not nearly enough well known. A Time To be Born is a scathing and hilarious study of cynical New Yorkers stalking each other for selfish ends against the backdrop of NYC in the months before America's entry in WW II. Funny, a bit madcap, with terrific writing. Highly recommended.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't always feel like sitting down to read this, but when I did, I was happy I had. One of the many things I find hard to read is prose that's trying to be funny but just isn't... but Dawn Powell is truly amusing, and I plucked plenty of those That's-so-true lines from this too. The story takes place in the months before America joined WWII: 'Look at the jewels, the rare pelts, the gaudy birds on elaborate hair-dress, and know that the war was here; already the women had inherited the earth'... a contemporary-feeling world where women fall for men who're still in love with someone else, who only make love to them when they're tight (we should bring that term back). And the men think, 'There must be some way to put an end to loving someone you hated. There must be some drug, some herb slipped under your pillow, some incantation, that immediately stopped another's power to destroy you. Another love, of course, but that was not so easy.' True dat, true dat.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Kind of loved and hated it at the same time.

[isabelllaj · Rating 5 out of 5]

delightful and funny

[Pris robichaud · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Cynical View Of Satire, 27 May 2006


Gore Vidal, admired and respected Dawn Powell and wrote a long article called,"Dawn Powell, The American Writer". Here he explains her writing "The novels of Dawn Powell have no truck with hypocrisies. She does not judge, excuse or sentimentalize, viewing her characters with a fine indifference to their manifold failings. Her almost Flaubertian aesthetic morality was often misread as sour detachment, but it was anything but. As she noted in her diary, "The satirist who really loves people loves them so well the way they are that he sees no need to disguise their characteristics -- he loves the whole, without retouching. Yet the word used for this unqualifying affection is 'cynicism.'" The Powell Effect is strikingly evident in her handling of the Clare Booth Luce character in her roman à clef "A Time to Be Born." The character is, in every conventional sense, a monster of sexual and literary deception, and a consummate liar and user, yet seen through Powell's clarifying lens her actions become understandable -- one even comes to accord her energies a respect akin to that we have for Becky Sharp. To feel, really feel, the heartbreak of an objectively contemptible character is an exquisitely mixed literary experience.. ." For his part, Gore Vidal offered a simple reason for Powell's sudden popularity: "We are catching up to her."

Dawn Powell came to New York City from Ohio. Many of her characters also were transplanted Midwesterners in the big city. The characters she writes about with her perfect economy, the writers and gallery owners, the publishers and businessmen juggling their mistresses, the gold diggers and sexual misfits and those that just slum, she offers no judgment about but is amused by their actions. We are all wise about these people, we see that virtue goes unrewarded and that luck smiles and frowns. However, her characters are rarely wise about themselves. We see through these people but at the same time understand their actions, they are not unworthy. Lisa Zeidner, writing in The New York Times Book Review, tells us Powell "is wittier than Dorothy Parker, dissects the rich better than F. Scott Fitzgerald, is more plaintive than Willa Cather in her evocation of the heartland, and has a more supple control of satirical voice than Evelyn Waugh." Ernest Hemingway called her his "favorite living writer." She was one of America's great novelists, and yet when she died in 1965 she was buried in an unmarked grave in New York's Potter's Field. It has only been recently that Dawn Powell's legacy has come to fruition. Her satire is perfect and biting and humorous.

"A Time To Be Born" is a study of cynical new Yorkers stalking each other. The story centers around a wealthy, self involved publisher, Julian Evans and his novelist wife, Amanda Keeler. Amanda Keeler has always been thought to be based on real life Clare Boothe Luce, who married Henry R Luce, cofounder of "Time" magazine. Her character is a monster of sexual deception, and a liar and user, yet we seem to agree that her actions are understandable. Dawn Powell always denied that Amanda Keeler was based upon the real-life Clare Boothe Luce, until years later when she discovered a memo she'd written to herself in 1939 that said, "Why not do a novel on Clare Luce?" Which prompted Powell to write in her diary "Who can I believe? Me or myself?" When Vicky Haven shows up in NYC from Ohio, Amanda assists her with a flat that Amanda uses as her love hideaway. Vicky falls in love with Amanda's lover, and thus all these characters in pre-war America 1942, are in "for a bumpy ride". We feel the heartbreak of all of these characters and that keeps us off-stride. A fast paced and literary novel, the like of which I have not read in a long time. Dawn Powell has written twelve novels, and I am set to read them all . She is an extraordinary satirical novelist and one to be admired. As she aptly states:

"Satire is people as they are; romanticism, people as they would like to be; realism, people as they seem with their insides left out." --Dawn Powell

Highly Recommended. prisrob 5-27-06

[Steve]

A Time to Be Born is a wonderful amalgam of cynicism and sarcasm refined against the artful practice of social advancement. Ms. Powell takes us into Manhattan society to display the silliness of it all, where sincerity is scarce and ulterior motive rampant. These pages teem with operators and opportunists always conscious of appearances. The foil for these thoughts is one Amanda Keeler of Lakeville, Ohio who has schemed her way into the role of wife number two—to the detriment of wife number one—for a publishing magnate, Julian Evans. Ms. Powell introduces a trio of friends from Lakeville to remind us that Amanda is never far from her pedestrian roots despite her noble pretenses and newfound social prominence.

This work caused me to think about the shenanigans the Manhattan elites concoct to get their kids into private schools, since heaven forbid they should even think of a public education, all, in the end, to have their children mature to the same station in life as that kid from Topeka High School #4, maybe the worse off a bit for all the privilege conferred along the way. I’m left thinking the only honest souls on that island are the cab drivers and bar tenders; everyone else has an angle, an agenda, mostly of small, selfish construction. Ms. Powell captured a remarkable spectrum of the human soul, which makes this a remarkable effort.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can’t believe I’ve been sleeping on Dawn Powell all these years. This novel is a razor-sharp satire on the American nouveau riche of the mid-twentieth century that reads like a combination of Dorothy Parker, Waugh, and Maugham. But Powell's target is not just the urban rich but the Main Street gossips and middle-class leeches who mirror and try to gain access (they hope) to that world. Just when I thought the novel was running out of steam, Powell introduces a twist with a controversial topic (even for today) that gives the novel’s title a clever double meaning. This one should be more well known, and I only wish that Merchant Ivory had made a film version in the 1980s with Denholm Elliott as Uncle Rockman.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am intrigued by Dawn Powell’s life and her biography would read like a novel in itself. I finally picked up this novel and thoroughly enjoyed it. The characters were horrible, shallow people but that is what she was parodying. She depicted wealth in NYC during WW2 as frivolous and insincere. Her characters used each other for financial and social gain. Women had few options available to them at the time but this plot was rather hyperbolic. I thought it was well written and interesting and a bit voyeuristic.

[Henry Blickle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Powell's masterful use of language and storytelling, as always, is a tonic. Her fine-tuned writing puts her in the same class as the other great American authors.

The characters come alive, evoking emotions that leave the reader picking their jaws up off the floor to scream at the characters and their choices. I was sad it ended, and I would love to know what this cast was up to in the aftermath of this novel.

Would recommend to anyone with good taste.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now I am left wanting to know what is going to happen to these characters next! Will Amanda be a success?

Very amusing look at the life of an ambitious woman, originally from a small Midwestern town, in New York City in the time just before the United States entered WW2 (1939-1940).

[Eddie Watkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Savagely witty and relentless dissection of shallow self-serving social dynamics in war-shadowed 1940's NYC.

[Sarah Cohn · Rating 4 out of 5]

a wonderfully energetic book, ripping apart late 30s nyc society. So funny too. Powell had a real gift with dialogue across all sexes, creeds etc. anyway I loved this and want to read more Powell

[Chris Gager · Rating 4 out of 5]

From my "to-read list" ... I've come a bit late to the Dawn Powell Revival Parade, which happened in the 1990's from what I've read. Oh well - I might read a bit of this inter-library loan(from the Portland Public Library) tonight. This cover image is correct, but my edition is hardcover.

- The title comes from Ecclesiastes. Pete Seeger turned the lines into a song - "Turn, Turn, Turn" - also sung by The Byrds.

Moving along as Ms. Powell establishes the "situation" in NYC and the content of her characters' characters. Overall this reads very much like a Hollywood combo comedy-soaper from the 30's-40's. Fun stuff ...

- Some suggestion of "Old Acquaintance," an excellent Bette Davis- Miriam Hopkins flick from the 40's.

Still engaging ... I read somewhere that Amanda was based on Claire Boothe Luce. Could very well be ...

This book is funny, funny and smart. Ms. Powell is plenty smart and stinging with her observations.

Inside the abortionist's office: "Around the walls hung pictures heavily framed in brown or black wood; steel engravings of "The Operation"(sinister looking doctors gathered around a skeletonic patient), "The Sick Child"(weeping, praying mother at bedside of dying boy), and enormous hand-tinted photographs of two eager, busty little girls in ruffled confirmation dress, their mature, knowing faces incongruously framed in frizzling black hair that repellently resembles the doctor's. A small black walnut coffin on top of a too red mahogany-veneered console proved to be an old music box. Vicky experimentally turned something which aroused a croaking and coughing and eventually a far-away forlorn tinkle of the "last Rose of Summer." This wheezed croupily into "The Scarf Dance," "Ben Bolt," and finally cackling "Dance of the Demons," that seemed to shake the ancient entrails of the box. Vicky tried to turn it off, but it went on and on, rattling through its repertoire endlessly like a garrulous witch."

- Lots of smoker's smoking here - how times have changed!

- Callingham = Hemingway???

- 4.25* = 4*. The only serious "criticism" I have is of the somewhat dated writing style. Lots of "you seeing" here ... Still - gotta read another Dawn Powell soon.

[Jenifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story came in a collection of five novels by the author. Someone way back recommended it to me and I finally got around to checking it out. Dawn Powell was a pretty well-known writer in the 40's and 50's but her books went out of print and she has become all but forgotten. The volume that I checked out from the library states that it is published by the Library of America which seeks to preserve America's literary heritage by publishing and keeping in print, America's best and most significant writing.

I liked "A Time to Be Born." Powell was a writer of social satire and commentary of her day, much like Jane Austen was in hers, and this story kind of reminded me of an Austen novel only written roughly 100 years later. I guess people just don't change that much.

I thought I would try to read another story from the volume; "Dance Night" but I didn't get very far. It was written about a small town in Ohio, and I just didn't like it as well as the later volume about the antics of the social set in New York City. I guess I've had enough Dawn Powell for now.

[Betsy Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not only a wicked and relentless send-up of American Society Folk and their obsession with status, but an educative, albeit exhausting, primer on psychopathy. Powell narrates every character’s inner monologue of judgments, duplicitous thoughts, and strategic manipulative behavior. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be inside the mind of somebody who perpetually pretends in order to gain something. Being inside the minds of a whole book of people was draining, but at times amusing. I was grateful that Powell gave some back story of the childhood hurts that resulted in the decisions to do whatever it takes to win some imagined thing or relationship or status — no matter how far from truth and sanity and a real possibility of happiness it requires people to go. A social satire, sometimes a light comedy, this book masterfully builds to juxtapose the relentless shallowness of most of the characters with the very real looming Nazi regime and WWII. Ultimately, despite the laughs and satire, the story made me sad.

[Ingrid · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book takes place in New York City just before the United States enters WWII. Amanda Keeler Evans is a scheming, ambitious young woman who seduces the wealthy publisher, Julian Evans from his first wife. Amanda's life is turned upside down when a childhood friend from Ohio arrives in New York. All of the characters in this book are social climbers who are looking to move up in New York society. This book was first published in 1942, but apparently there has been renewed interest in the books written by Dawn Powell. I enjoyed this book very much.

[Christopher Sutch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply perfect, a bravura show of brilliance. Powell was a gifted writer and my respect for her talent (and bewilderment at her failure to attain canonical status) increases with every book of her's I read. This novel is hysterically funny and, at the same time, devastatingly heartbreaking. Powell's gift for description is displayed to wonderful advantage here: deeply ironical, wonderfully original, and captivating. This is one terrific book.