What do you think?
Rate this book
A Woman Named Drown: A Novel
Hailed by Time as an “extravagantly comic” novel, A Woman Named Drown is a wild and strange journey through America’s South that follows a young PhD dropout who falls in with an amateur actress–cum-pool shark
On the brink of earning his doctorate in chemistry, the unnamed narrator decides to chuck it all away in favor of real life. So begins an odd pilgrimage through the American South. In Tennessee, our hero is bewitched by an older, gin-swilling, pool-playing sometimes-actress who claims to have recently starred in a theatrical production about a “woman named Drown.” He moves in with her and just as quickly begins encountering her strange compatriots. Before he knows it, they’re heading farther south together—to Florida—where the data that the dropout scientist is collecting from life’s laboratory is about to get quite contradictory.
Richly influenced by offbeat literary giant Donald Barthelme, Padgett Powell’s A Woman Named Drown offers readers a smorgasbord of literary strangeness—a surreal series of adventures in which nothing much—and yet everything—happens at once.
On the brink of earning his doctorate in chemistry, the unnamed narrator decides to chuck it all away in favor of real life. So begins an odd pilgrimage through the American South. In Tennessee, our hero is bewitched by an older, gin-swilling, pool-playing sometimes-actress who claims to have recently starred in a theatrical production about a “woman named Drown.” He moves in with her and just as quickly begins encountering her strange compatriots. Before he knows it, they’re heading farther south together—to Florida—where the data that the dropout scientist is collecting from life’s laboratory is about to get quite contradictory.
Richly influenced by offbeat literary giant Donald Barthelme, Padgett Powell’s A Woman Named Drown offers readers a smorgasbord of literary strangeness—a surreal series of adventures in which nothing much—and yet everything—happens at once.
178 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
4 people are currently reading
105 people want to read
About the author
Padgett Powell
38 books110 followersPadgett Powell is the author of four novels, including Edisto, which was nominated for the National Book Award. His writing has appeared in the New Yorker, Harper’s, The Paris Review, Esquire, and other publications, as well as in the anthologies Best American Short Stories and Best American Sports Writing. He lives in Gainesville, Florida, where he teaches writing at MFA@FLA, the writing program of the University of Florida.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 22, 2019
This book is like being in a science researcher’s drunk dream, on a road trip. I’m not sure what it’s about but it has to do with “titration”:
Suffice it to say, it’s a sometimes funny story about a lab scientist who dumps his life to find out what happens if he simply moves and reacts. And the conclusion has to do with breaking down what happens to people according to the relationships between their ambition, opportunity, self-importance, and luck for young men with older women who are well practiced handling loss. It’s only 168 pages, and I enjoyed most of them even if I couldn’t understand them.
(Chemistry) an operation, used in volumetric analysis, in which a measured amount of one solution is added to a known quantity of another solution until the reaction between the two is complete. If the concentration of one solution is known, that of the other can be calculated.But following that via the narrative is a bit too much work.
Suffice it to say, it’s a sometimes funny story about a lab scientist who dumps his life to find out what happens if he simply moves and reacts. And the conclusion has to do with breaking down what happens to people according to the relationships between their ambition, opportunity, self-importance, and luck for young men with older women who are well practiced handling loss. It’s only 168 pages, and I enjoyed most of them even if I couldn’t understand them.
February 17, 2017
The story/set-up is not original: young white male decides to quit the chemistry doctoral program he is in and, instead, goes traipsing across the country, southern portion, meeting a cross-section of people and having mostly sloppy adventures. Kind of like the Canterbury Tales but with a lot more gin. When it did not make me wince, the southern vernacular entertained me; and, truth be told, I now know appreciably more about bestiality than I did a mere 24 hours ago.
Padgett Powell knows how to pull at the scabs America has formed. He brings up class and race, not always convincingly. But there's no denying he can skewer.
An uncle has this to say about his twin nieces: "They take those kids to live filmings of Sesame Street," he said. "Make them listen to NPR. Had their birthday announced from Lake Wobegon. No nitrates. No cereal."
For all the slapstick, there is profundity here. Or, as our protagonist says, after an epiphany or three:
These are the thoughts you can have, drunk at five in the morning, skating on the acorns on your private tennis court.
Padgett Powell knows how to pull at the scabs America has formed. He brings up class and race, not always convincingly. But there's no denying he can skewer.
An uncle has this to say about his twin nieces: "They take those kids to live filmings of Sesame Street," he said. "Make them listen to NPR. Had their birthday announced from Lake Wobegon. No nitrates. No cereal."
For all the slapstick, there is profundity here. Or, as our protagonist says, after an epiphany or three:
These are the thoughts you can have, drunk at five in the morning, skating on the acorns on your private tennis court.
February 23, 2016
--At first blush, I must say that the length of this book ( 165 pages ) is disappointing. But that statement, in reality, is a selfish realization that I love Powell's work and never want to actually 'finish' one of his books as it means that I must extricate myself from a world of his making.
--Powell's considerable talent for creating entire worlds filled with richly dimensional characters in such brief novels is akin to the brevity and 'perfectness' of the language of a poet. That is not to say that this author offers up anything resembling less-than-gritty and realistic slices of ordinary life where-in most any reader will recognize the characters and randomly giggle at their all-too-human muddling through their worlds.
--The author's playful use of language demands that the reader often stop to savor the opulence and sometimes metaphysical beauty of certain sentences. To quote a few here, out of context, might weakly convey my meaning--but why spoil the fun? READ THE BOOK!
--The dust jacket quotes one reviewer as saying this book " offers readers a smorgasbord of literary strangeness- a surreal series of adventures in which nothing much--and yet everything--happens at once." I agree.
--And, by the way in terms of the "shortness" of this book: it is only 165 pages long because it only NEEDS to be 165 pages long to achieve Perfect Powell-ness. (Why, yes, I DID create a word).
I highly recommend this one.
--Powell's considerable talent for creating entire worlds filled with richly dimensional characters in such brief novels is akin to the brevity and 'perfectness' of the language of a poet. That is not to say that this author offers up anything resembling less-than-gritty and realistic slices of ordinary life where-in most any reader will recognize the characters and randomly giggle at their all-too-human muddling through their worlds.
--The author's playful use of language demands that the reader often stop to savor the opulence and sometimes metaphysical beauty of certain sentences. To quote a few here, out of context, might weakly convey my meaning--but why spoil the fun? READ THE BOOK!
--The dust jacket quotes one reviewer as saying this book " offers readers a smorgasbord of literary strangeness- a surreal series of adventures in which nothing much--and yet everything--happens at once." I agree.
--And, by the way in terms of the "shortness" of this book: it is only 165 pages long because it only NEEDS to be 165 pages long to achieve Perfect Powell-ness. (Why, yes, I DID create a word).
I highly recommend this one.
April 10, 2025
A little too esoteric for me. There are some good lines in it. Lab notes on my life is one.
September 16, 2010
my copy is a hardcover, there is no isbn number anywhere on it that i can find therefore it doesn't exist. ground control to major tom, commencing countdown engines one....
i read this one in '87. padgett signed it, inside back cover, 4/21/87...he looks young there, his foot on a concrete block, a big spread of canvas covering something...maybe a work in progress?
i've read this one a number of times. seems like someplace in the story, there's a situation where someone sets up a dummy tenant in one of the spare rooms where he rents. little name tag on the door. some books.
back in 85, 86, thereabouts, padgett powell and donald justice came to the sanders house there on 2nd avenue by the post office, gainesville. i was hunkered in my room at the time and i heard them in the hallway. rooming house. they were checking out the storage closet where things were. i don't recall anyone ever cleaning, so there must not have been cleaning supplies in there.
but i could hear padgett in the hall....i think the rafinburgh had sent them upstairs to see my door where i placed a tag in the name slot, "gettin enny"....heard padgett ponder, 'who lives here?" fodder, i imagine, that became a scene, part of the telling of 'a woman named drown'.
and there seems to be a tad of a downstairs tenant here, as well...someone complaining about another who comes in the urinates on the floor. pizzes.
powell has a way w/words....this one about "starting and quitting", some "warm-up starting and quitting", and more. a joy to read. i've read it a number of times.
i read this one in '87. padgett signed it, inside back cover, 4/21/87...he looks young there, his foot on a concrete block, a big spread of canvas covering something...maybe a work in progress?
i've read this one a number of times. seems like someplace in the story, there's a situation where someone sets up a dummy tenant in one of the spare rooms where he rents. little name tag on the door. some books.
back in 85, 86, thereabouts, padgett powell and donald justice came to the sanders house there on 2nd avenue by the post office, gainesville. i was hunkered in my room at the time and i heard them in the hallway. rooming house. they were checking out the storage closet where things were. i don't recall anyone ever cleaning, so there must not have been cleaning supplies in there.
but i could hear padgett in the hall....i think the rafinburgh had sent them upstairs to see my door where i placed a tag in the name slot, "gettin enny"....heard padgett ponder, 'who lives here?" fodder, i imagine, that became a scene, part of the telling of 'a woman named drown'.
and there seems to be a tad of a downstairs tenant here, as well...someone complaining about another who comes in the urinates on the floor. pizzes.
powell has a way w/words....this one about "starting and quitting", some "warm-up starting and quitting", and more. a joy to read. i've read it a number of times.
August 6, 2017
This is a classic tale of a journey of self-discovery, which is ever more classic in that Powell makes it distinct and unique with his own style.
In this one, the narrator is a budding chemist with a safety net of a wealthy but cold family he could fall back on. Rather, he would prefer to unravel the molecular structure of life itself, and as a result joins up with the titular character on a journey to meet other strange and interesting characters. This is a classic travel book, not of landscapes but of the oddities and permutations of the human animal. Powell's sense of expression and style are always pricking to the ear to keep almost every moment chugging forward. The final chapters slog a bit in trying to wrap everything up a little too neatly, but overall a worthy read.
In this one, the narrator is a budding chemist with a safety net of a wealthy but cold family he could fall back on. Rather, he would prefer to unravel the molecular structure of life itself, and as a result joins up with the titular character on a journey to meet other strange and interesting characters. This is a classic travel book, not of landscapes but of the oddities and permutations of the human animal. Powell's sense of expression and style are always pricking to the ear to keep almost every moment chugging forward. The final chapters slog a bit in trying to wrap everything up a little too neatly, but overall a worthy read.
June 10, 2012
I'm a little allergic to the Southern Gothic/ironic except in the hands of the real masters, and sometimes even then. This one has two snake handlers, except one of them is secular and his snake is dead.
Edisto really worked, I think, because the ironically distanced narrator was a little kid. In this one, Powell tries for a very schematized epiphany to redeem the ironies at the end, and doesn't quite pull it off.
He's got a great ear, though, and it's often fairly funny.
Edisto really worked, I think, because the ironically distanced narrator was a little kid. In this one, Powell tries for a very schematized epiphany to redeem the ironies at the end, and doesn't quite pull it off.
He's got a great ear, though, and it's often fairly funny.
June 23, 2012
The cover blurbs correctly say this is one funny book, but it is also surprisingly poignant. Comes out of a Southern picaresque tradition in which you encounter a full range of regional folk, all described with wit and respect. Not quite a brilliant work, but I very much enjoyed reading it.
July 21, 2007
Not his best, but if you like him, it is worth reading; devouring might be problematic, though.
August 15, 2009
experiments in living/ the anti-actualization quotient
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews