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Angels on Toast
Two dubious businessmen attempt to outwit their wives, mistresses, and hangers-on
273 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1940
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727 people want to read
About the author
Dawn Powell
43 books338 followersDawn Powell was an American writer of satirical novels and stories that manage to be barbed and sensitive at the same time.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 61 reviews
November 15, 2013
Dawn Powell said she started writing as a youngster because "there was no one to talk to." Arriving in NYC from Ohio in 1918 she continued writing -- 15 novels and plays -- until her death in 1965. A worldling who scorned notions of Love, Marriage, the Family, she dissects Manhattan in a whizzy, plotless Altmanesque manner : hers is a bruising comedy of infidelities and double-dealing. "Never do anything you can't deny," announces a social-climbing sport. This sets the tone for a tough but vulnerable writer who supported an alcoholic husby and retarded child yet managed lovers. Reflecting her own life, Powell has no time for sentiment when strychnine is needed for survival.
"What good is reason when the heart is out of order," ponders the wife of a selfish businessman who never coos Sweet Dreams to anyone. "Doctor," she wants to say, "I think I'm going sane ." Powell, with savage wit that tops Dot Parker, adds : "It is as sad to stop loving as it is to stop being loved."
The story focuses on 2 philandering husbys ("Do what you please, but keep up the marriage front"), their inept wives ("Here was a woman you'd never tire of, because there was not enough of her to tire of"), and their needy mistresses ("Maybe you didn't want a husband or father or a child or a dog but you did have to have something.")
Despite the highest praise from Edmund Wilson, Powell never won popularity. Why? Easy to answer. Readers, mostly midcult stiffs, want at least one Feelgood character. Powell refuses to deliver. Her satire stings. On my word of honor says the unsparing Powell, you are as insane as anybody in the room.
"What good is reason when the heart is out of order," ponders the wife of a selfish businessman who never coos Sweet Dreams to anyone. "Doctor," she wants to say, "I think I'm going sane ." Powell, with savage wit that tops Dot Parker, adds : "It is as sad to stop loving as it is to stop being loved."
The story focuses on 2 philandering husbys ("Do what you please, but keep up the marriage front"), their inept wives ("Here was a woman you'd never tire of, because there was not enough of her to tire of"), and their needy mistresses ("Maybe you didn't want a husband or father or a child or a dog but you did have to have something.")
Despite the highest praise from Edmund Wilson, Powell never won popularity. Why? Easy to answer. Readers, mostly midcult stiffs, want at least one Feelgood character. Powell refuses to deliver. Her satire stings. On my word of honor says the unsparing Powell, you are as insane as anybody in the room.
April 7, 2013
Gore Vidal just couldn't believe how funny Dawn Powell was, how witty her writing; after reading her entire oeuvre, after knowing her personally in the 50's while still lingering in his 20’s, Gore Vidal couldn't quite believe how one woman could have contained all that wit. He decided it must have something to do with the fact Dawn spent most of her early life singing for her supper while being shuffled in between mid-western boarding houses until she landed in New York. But boy, once she landed in Manhattan and began to write about the place; do not doubt for one minute Dawn Powell did not own and write about New York at a certain time, better than anyone before or since.
One of many a clever device was her ability to make Manhattan read like a character. In Angels in Toast, it's not unlike watching Hitchcock treat 'Old San Fran' as a central character in “Vertigo”. Dawn Powell, in Angels on Toast, writes about Manhattan as if the city were yet character on the make, on the take and hustling it hard like the rest of her perfectly drawn characters. Her writing and her wit not only keep a smile stapled to your lips as you read how the middle class truly operate but its so hard-boiled you feel just a bit embarrassed by how much you enjoy laughing at yourself. After you finish the novel and close the book, I guarantee you’ll there looking out in space, imagining how the characters continue to live out their lives, if only in your mind. It can’t end, so you'll just sit there, stubbornly at first, then quietly let your own imagination finish away...
As Edmund Wilson once said about Dawn Powell's style; 'wit gives the game away, wit blows the cool off those who are forever expressing a sense of choked up outrage'. And when deployed by a woman with her kind of surgical calm, it's like a brutal assault upon nature. I paraphrase but you get his drift.
Dawn may not be a romantic but that doesn't mean she can't break your heart, and she just may, most likely on page 185: "It was frightening to wake up in the morning and know that love did not last, no matter how it was treated. Even a shrew, nagging, ragging, bullying and deprecating the husband out of sheer discontent with her own dream of him, must believe it can go on forever, and must be bewildered when, at a kind glance from some gentler woman, he leaves. People think relationships are made of rubber and stretch and give in to every crisis, and it is a shock to find they can snap in two like a glass thermometer. Why should anyone feel that a great truth is hidden from him when it is written all over the sky that nothing is permanent.
Reading Dawn Powell is like reading in a dream state. "My favorite Dawn Powell Quote: Satire is people as they are; romanticism, people as they would like to be; realism, people as they seem with their insides left out." Unfortunately this ticked off the NY literati when Dawn was trying to hustle her work, alas, she's still laughing somewhere and we get to laugh right alongside, lucky we are to be breathing, imbibing her genius. She insisted we laugh, above all, at ourselves.
Now it's time for another Dawn Powell; this time: The Happy Island.
One of many a clever device was her ability to make Manhattan read like a character. In Angels in Toast, it's not unlike watching Hitchcock treat 'Old San Fran' as a central character in “Vertigo”. Dawn Powell, in Angels on Toast, writes about Manhattan as if the city were yet character on the make, on the take and hustling it hard like the rest of her perfectly drawn characters. Her writing and her wit not only keep a smile stapled to your lips as you read how the middle class truly operate but its so hard-boiled you feel just a bit embarrassed by how much you enjoy laughing at yourself. After you finish the novel and close the book, I guarantee you’ll there looking out in space, imagining how the characters continue to live out their lives, if only in your mind. It can’t end, so you'll just sit there, stubbornly at first, then quietly let your own imagination finish away...
As Edmund Wilson once said about Dawn Powell's style; 'wit gives the game away, wit blows the cool off those who are forever expressing a sense of choked up outrage'. And when deployed by a woman with her kind of surgical calm, it's like a brutal assault upon nature. I paraphrase but you get his drift.
Dawn may not be a romantic but that doesn't mean she can't break your heart, and she just may, most likely on page 185: "It was frightening to wake up in the morning and know that love did not last, no matter how it was treated. Even a shrew, nagging, ragging, bullying and deprecating the husband out of sheer discontent with her own dream of him, must believe it can go on forever, and must be bewildered when, at a kind glance from some gentler woman, he leaves. People think relationships are made of rubber and stretch and give in to every crisis, and it is a shock to find they can snap in two like a glass thermometer. Why should anyone feel that a great truth is hidden from him when it is written all over the sky that nothing is permanent.
Reading Dawn Powell is like reading in a dream state. "My favorite Dawn Powell Quote: Satire is people as they are; romanticism, people as they would like to be; realism, people as they seem with their insides left out." Unfortunately this ticked off the NY literati when Dawn was trying to hustle her work, alas, she's still laughing somewhere and we get to laugh right alongside, lucky we are to be breathing, imbibing her genius. She insisted we laugh, above all, at ourselves.
Now it's time for another Dawn Powell; this time: The Happy Island.
May 10, 2021
It's uncanny when you read a novel that transcends its plot and becomes something else, all in the space of just a handful of pages. "Angels on Toast" is just that kind of literary sustenance, much more a meal than, say, what seems in comparison to be a vapid moment-in-time book, the current social novels I've read recently like "The Emporer's Children" or "All We Ever Wanted Was Everything," novels that offer crumbs of insight and only scant entertainment. I've heard of but had never read any of Dawn Powell's work until I bought this title, and I can see now why she engendered a loyal following.
"Angels on Toast" manages to be several things at once: it is a prescient critique of the rise of business and how from that ascent the American Dream is spun from vapor but ultimately falls flat; it is a psychological gender study that examines the plight of the white collar man, his harping and tragic wife (or wives), and the lures of the manipulative but self-preserving mistress. These characters might be stock in the mind of a lesser writer, but Powell achieves, with flair, to painstakingly mold the individual worlds of each of the three main characters so that the stock situation, when met by society's expectations, renders something far beyond a traditional American tragedy or even a comedy of manners.
If you're tempted to try "Angels on Toast," pay attention to Powell's focus on light, how it enters the room, how it shines on or evades the scene, whether its source is from nature or incandescence. The lights help us piece together the novel's mysteries of love and desire, even as they are unraveled and laid bare right in front of our eyes.
"Angels on Toast" manages to be several things at once: it is a prescient critique of the rise of business and how from that ascent the American Dream is spun from vapor but ultimately falls flat; it is a psychological gender study that examines the plight of the white collar man, his harping and tragic wife (or wives), and the lures of the manipulative but self-preserving mistress. These characters might be stock in the mind of a lesser writer, but Powell achieves, with flair, to painstakingly mold the individual worlds of each of the three main characters so that the stock situation, when met by society's expectations, renders something far beyond a traditional American tragedy or even a comedy of manners.
If you're tempted to try "Angels on Toast," pay attention to Powell's focus on light, how it enters the room, how it shines on or evades the scene, whether its source is from nature or incandescence. The lights help us piece together the novel's mysteries of love and desire, even as they are unraveled and laid bare right in front of our eyes.
January 29, 2021
A Satire Of Business
Dawn Powell published "Angels on Toast" in 1940 to generally favorable reviews but poor sales. She rewrote the book, shortening and softening its satire, in 1956 under the title "A Man's Affair". She also wrote a TV script based on the book called "You should have brought your mink". The book has been reissued several times, all in the original 1940 version.
When the book first appeared, the critic Diana Trilling wrote a negative review. She observed that Powell was a writer of great gifts and style who, in "Angels on Toast", had wasted her talents on utterly frivolous, valueless people and scenes. On reading the book, I can understand Trilling's reaction. The book isn't one of Powell's best, but its scenes are sharply-etched and entertaining. As I have frequently found in Powell's novels, the book works better in parts than as a whole, even though the story line of "Angels on Toast" is generally clear and coherent.
The story is basically a satire of American business in the later 1930s with the scene shifting back and forth from Chicago to New York City. The two main protagonists are businessmen, Lou Donovan and his best friend, a less successful businessman named Jay Oliver. The two characters are pretty well differentiated from each other although both remain one-dimensional. The activities of Lou and Jay can be summarized in three terms: moneymaking, drinking and wenching. As are virtually all the characters in the book, Lou and Jay are out for the main chance in their endless trips to New York. They engage in unending bouts of hard drinking. Their sexual affairs, and the deceits they paractice on their wives and mistresses take up at least as much time as the business and the booze. Jay's mistreess is a woman named Elsie while Lou is involved with a mysterious woman named Trina Kameray. Both give just as good as they get. It is difficult to think of a book where the entire cast of characters are crass, materialistic, on the make, without sense of value. Powell portrays them sharply.
I found the book less successful than Powell's other New York novels. I think this is because the book satirizes American business and Powell clearly has less sympathy with business than she does with the subjects of her satire in her other novels. Her other books generally deal with dissilusioned wannabe artists in Grenwich Village, with writers, nightclub entertainers, frustrated musicians, and writers resisting the tide of commercialism. Powell has knowledge of the lives of such people and sympathy with at least some of their ideals. This gives a touch of ambivalence and poignancy to the satire. But in "Angels on Toast", she shows no real knowledge and no sympathy to the world of business. This, I think, makes the satire shrill and too one-sided. Also, the business world is satirized in essentially the same terms as the various components of New York society Powell satirizes in her other books -- i.e. the characters are egotistical in the extreme, heavy drinkers (always), and sexually promiscuous and unfaithful.
Some of the individual scenes in the book are well-done. In particular, I enjoyed Powell's descriptions of a fading old New York Hotel, called the Ellery and its guests and the patrons at its bar. There are a few good scenes of train travel in the 1930's, and much sharp, punchy dialogue. The book held my interest.
The characters are crass and one-dimensional. Powell refers to some of her minor characters repeatedly by offensive nicknames such as "the snit", "the floozie" and "the punk", which certainly don't show much attempt at a sympathetic understanding of people. The book is sharp, cutting, and more so that Powell's other books, overwhelmingly negative towards its protagonists.
This book has its moments. The writing style and the details are enjoyable, but the satire is too one-dimensional and heavy-handed. Although the book is worth knowing, it is one of Dawn Powell's lesser efforts.
Robin Friedman
Dawn Powell published "Angels on Toast" in 1940 to generally favorable reviews but poor sales. She rewrote the book, shortening and softening its satire, in 1956 under the title "A Man's Affair". She also wrote a TV script based on the book called "You should have brought your mink". The book has been reissued several times, all in the original 1940 version.
When the book first appeared, the critic Diana Trilling wrote a negative review. She observed that Powell was a writer of great gifts and style who, in "Angels on Toast", had wasted her talents on utterly frivolous, valueless people and scenes. On reading the book, I can understand Trilling's reaction. The book isn't one of Powell's best, but its scenes are sharply-etched and entertaining. As I have frequently found in Powell's novels, the book works better in parts than as a whole, even though the story line of "Angels on Toast" is generally clear and coherent.
The story is basically a satire of American business in the later 1930s with the scene shifting back and forth from Chicago to New York City. The two main protagonists are businessmen, Lou Donovan and his best friend, a less successful businessman named Jay Oliver. The two characters are pretty well differentiated from each other although both remain one-dimensional. The activities of Lou and Jay can be summarized in three terms: moneymaking, drinking and wenching. As are virtually all the characters in the book, Lou and Jay are out for the main chance in their endless trips to New York. They engage in unending bouts of hard drinking. Their sexual affairs, and the deceits they paractice on their wives and mistresses take up at least as much time as the business and the booze. Jay's mistreess is a woman named Elsie while Lou is involved with a mysterious woman named Trina Kameray. Both give just as good as they get. It is difficult to think of a book where the entire cast of characters are crass, materialistic, on the make, without sense of value. Powell portrays them sharply.
I found the book less successful than Powell's other New York novels. I think this is because the book satirizes American business and Powell clearly has less sympathy with business than she does with the subjects of her satire in her other novels. Her other books generally deal with dissilusioned wannabe artists in Grenwich Village, with writers, nightclub entertainers, frustrated musicians, and writers resisting the tide of commercialism. Powell has knowledge of the lives of such people and sympathy with at least some of their ideals. This gives a touch of ambivalence and poignancy to the satire. But in "Angels on Toast", she shows no real knowledge and no sympathy to the world of business. This, I think, makes the satire shrill and too one-sided. Also, the business world is satirized in essentially the same terms as the various components of New York society Powell satirizes in her other books -- i.e. the characters are egotistical in the extreme, heavy drinkers (always), and sexually promiscuous and unfaithful.
Some of the individual scenes in the book are well-done. In particular, I enjoyed Powell's descriptions of a fading old New York Hotel, called the Ellery and its guests and the patrons at its bar. There are a few good scenes of train travel in the 1930's, and much sharp, punchy dialogue. The book held my interest.
The characters are crass and one-dimensional. Powell refers to some of her minor characters repeatedly by offensive nicknames such as "the snit", "the floozie" and "the punk", which certainly don't show much attempt at a sympathetic understanding of people. The book is sharp, cutting, and more so that Powell's other books, overwhelmingly negative towards its protagonists.
This book has its moments. The writing style and the details are enjoyable, but the satire is too one-dimensional and heavy-handed. Although the book is worth knowing, it is one of Dawn Powell's lesser efforts.
Robin Friedman
May 12, 2018
I just am not into this and I do not want to read it. Maybe it will be different someday... I can totally see why Dawn Powell is loved. She is a very interesting and maybe great writer. This is from 1940. I just want more plot. I guess that's why I like genre books.
April 1, 2024
An underrated classic that deserves to be up there in the finest noir writing of the 1940s. Reminiscent of writing by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nathaniel West, and Robert Nathan, reading this book has a cinematic feel that feels like it could be made into a Preston Sturges or Billy Wilder movie starring Barbara Stanwyck, Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews or Charles Boyer.
March 13, 2023
Having read some of her work before, I find it easy to admire Dawn Powell - apparently even when coming across something by her (such as this book) that I feel indifferent about.
But something tells me that my feeling was shared by the author - when it comes to her attitude toward her characters.
Unlike some of her more enjoyable novels - in which Powell might concentrate on artistic-types - the world presented here is the world of business. Powell seems to have definite opinions about the people in that world; the wheeler dealers and their 'sordid topic of coin'. Those opinions of hers aren't good ones. She doesn't like businessmen. Or their associates. Or their wives or (for the most part) their mistresses.
It makes for a dour book. Not the whole time. The first half is full of the author's insight and, for that reason, is engaging. (Her funniest lines are in the first half, including gems like: Honey was a virgin (at least you couldn't prove she wasn't), and was as proud as punch of it. You would have thought it was something that had been in the family for generations so that no matter what the circumstances she could never quite bring herself to hock it.) But halfway-through (you can immediately sense the shift), things turn decidedly dark - as Powell takes out a scalpel and aims at the underbelly. Insight remains but there's little that's pleasant.
Essentially it's a story of the fragile nature of ill-conceived relationships; things hinged on a hunch - both in love and in business. It's a story populated with fools.
One of the best chapters opens the novel. We meet best-business-buds Lou Donovan and Jay Oliver on a train; their repartee is brisk and sharp and Powell is to be applauded for the way she captures such male bonding and illuminates the male psyche. We will soon come to see Oliver as rather spineless but Donovan at least has an interesting arc: we think he's one thing, only to be disappointed when he comes into focus. Powell does a fine job in unveiling his particular brand of duplicity.
Chapter 5 is my favorite. It's devoted to commercial artist Ebie Vane, a woman doing well for herself career-wise, until she falls for Oliver - finding herself at sixes and sevens. Ebie's chapter is an entertaining sort of paean to her confusion:
But something tells me that my feeling was shared by the author - when it comes to her attitude toward her characters.
Unlike some of her more enjoyable novels - in which Powell might concentrate on artistic-types - the world presented here is the world of business. Powell seems to have definite opinions about the people in that world; the wheeler dealers and their 'sordid topic of coin'. Those opinions of hers aren't good ones. She doesn't like businessmen. Or their associates. Or their wives or (for the most part) their mistresses.
It makes for a dour book. Not the whole time. The first half is full of the author's insight and, for that reason, is engaging. (Her funniest lines are in the first half, including gems like: Honey was a virgin (at least you couldn't prove she wasn't), and was as proud as punch of it. You would have thought it was something that had been in the family for generations so that no matter what the circumstances she could never quite bring herself to hock it.) But halfway-through (you can immediately sense the shift), things turn decidedly dark - as Powell takes out a scalpel and aims at the underbelly. Insight remains but there's little that's pleasant.
Essentially it's a story of the fragile nature of ill-conceived relationships; things hinged on a hunch - both in love and in business. It's a story populated with fools.
One of the best chapters opens the novel. We meet best-business-buds Lou Donovan and Jay Oliver on a train; their repartee is brisk and sharp and Powell is to be applauded for the way she captures such male bonding and illuminates the male psyche. We will soon come to see Oliver as rather spineless but Donovan at least has an interesting arc: we think he's one thing, only to be disappointed when he comes into focus. Powell does a fine job in unveiling his particular brand of duplicity.
Chapter 5 is my favorite. It's devoted to commercial artist Ebie Vane, a woman doing well for herself career-wise, until she falls for Oliver - finding herself at sixes and sevens. Ebie's chapter is an entertaining sort of paean to her confusion:
On Sundays Ebie lay in bed and thought what a mess she'd made of her life. ... That was another angle to her Sunday soliloquies, this thinking things then wondering if that was what she really thought or what she had made up her mind to think, and if so, what was she really thinking behind her thoughts.It's only unfortunate when, after Chapter 5, Ebie more or less disappears from the novel (though she's talked about) until a cameo appearance near the end. Had I been the author, I would have fashioned the whole story around her.
October 4, 2012
Among Dawn Powell's best -- chapter five alone reads like the best short story written about a certain kind of life in New York City; up there with Breakfast at Tiffany's. A ranging cast of characters, perfectly described and deployed.
November 17, 2017
I read Angels on Toast en route to Barcelona on a plane. At first I considered this an okay read, but it grew on me the more and more I realized how deftly and brutally Dawn Powell elaborates on the lives of people whose business savviness and corporate ambition often leave a string of romantic failures. She makes the case that the drive it takes to conquer the former will devastate the latter if applied to love and sex. That the book closes on Lou downgrading his class status in response to the devastation of his personal life is very telling about his error in acting like his behavior in both ought to be identical.
As I am traveling and can´t elaborate much further, I feel the jokes in Angels on Toast come not as frequently, but are still solid; there are moments where it seems Powell is emulating a hard-boiled style, and the book finishes after it feels like it´s stayed its welcome. Plus a few issues with coincidence, it is an okay read that grows on the reader over time.
As I am traveling and can´t elaborate much further, I feel the jokes in Angels on Toast come not as frequently, but are still solid; there are moments where it seems Powell is emulating a hard-boiled style, and the book finishes after it feels like it´s stayed its welcome. Plus a few issues with coincidence, it is an okay read that grows on the reader over time.
May 26, 2015
Strongly recommended as a first book if you are looking for a gateway drug into the cult of Dawn Powell (which you should be if you haven't already been inducted into it). I deeply respected the other Dawn Powell novels I've read, but I didn't love them: her surgically cruel view of humanity felt too cruel, too relentless after a while; there was neither enough wit to lighten the mood nor enough heart to deepen it and give it stakes that felt worth reading. This book finally changed that for me. The characters are probably the most mercilessly unpleasant I've ever encountered in a Powell novel (which is saying a lot), but for once Powell's uproarious style had me laughing with them (rather than at them) throughout, while her relentless insights simultaneously left me feeling a very tender pity for their desperately pathetic and utterly American striving.
December 4, 2023
Set in pre-Pearl Harbor New York and Chicago, Lou and Mary have been married six years and have a little girl … Mary is pale, delicate, and cultured … Lou is a hard-driving business-man and developer … Unfortunately, he is also a serial womanizer … What will happen if Mary ever finds out about her husband’s infidelity? This is similar to a recurring article in “The Ladies’ Home Journal” (or perhaps “McCall’s”) of that period or slightly later entitled “Can This Marriage Be Saved?” … The book’s title comes from an incident when Lou and his best friend Jay take two women to an expensive restaurant. One of the women complains that men think that steak is the only thing to order at such a Ritzy place. Lou responds: “‘Four angels on toast, waiter,’ he said, ‘nothing too good for us.’” … beautifully characterized and written with a good ear for the spoken word …
February 8, 2023
Very Dorothy Parker, with a little Great Gatsby thrown in for good measure (neither the glitz nor the glamor from that one though.) Dawn Powell writes about men and women of the upperclass-and-striving-to-be-even-higher in the 1930s, making everyone out to be absolutely abominable.
Lou Donovan is the self proclaimed nice guy doing boring business deals in [insert industry here, I never even committed it to memory] with his friend, the more caddish Jay Oliver. Although, both men cheat on their wives like it's going out of style. They each have one steady side-girlfriend throughout the novel, which doesn't stop them from trying to pick up others. Jay's girl is Ebie (a very funny name), who needs to pose as Lou's girl when they run into Jay's wife Flo. Lou goes after the continental Mrs. Kameray, very transparently complimentary of Lou and equally transparently looking for a green card to stay in America (by the way it is 1938 and she's Jewish. Shockingly fleeting mention of that fact!) We get a few chapters from Ebie's perspective, waiting around for Jay to call, hating herself doing it, but unable to really live her life, and a few chapters from Lou's second wife Mary, perhaps the mousiest character to ever make her bed and lie in it. Although she gets hers in the end.
The commentary on upperclass marriage was so, so, so, so grim. This is where it got very Dorothy Parker, with this fatalistic criticism of gender roles, skewering both men and women for their part in them. The men are all desperate to get away from their wives, who they married practically under duress thinking they had to pick the most staid and virginal women who they can barely carry on a conversation with. The women meanwhile, both wives mistresses, spend their lives waiting around until these men deign to come home to them. Mary especially was so vanilla and undersexed. "For the charm of her love was what she withheld, just as the basic force of Lou's love was in demanding what would be denied, wanting more, no matter what, than would be given." While her husband goes outside the marriage for sex, Mary thinks of these girlfriends as temptresses who "pretended to like it just to trap him and so betray her, make her refusals seem wrong, his cajoling demands right." How eternally fucked up. Still, marriage is viewed as the ultimate financial score for both genders (especially if you are Lou and you married Mary for her family money.) That justification is so Dorothy Parker too. It doesn't even seem strange or unfair to these characters, they simply can't fathom another way of living their lives because of the comforts it affords them.
The Lou character reminded me a bit of Guy Haines from Strangers on a Train (the not obviously psychopathic one.) At the beginning, you think oh this Jay Oliver character is the cad, the real philanderer compared with the slightly more reasonable-seeming Lou Donovan. But after not too many pages, it becomes clear Lou is the real loser. The way that Dawn Powell gets in his head is interesting too, very Strangers-on-a-Train-esque. I can tell you one thing, Guy Haines would have DETESTED the women in this book too, especially Flo.
Ah Flo. Jay's wife and intellectual equal who Lou relentlessly mocks. Lou pities Jay for having a talkative wife who makes him feel less than. He is constantly referring to her as a battleaxe, a nag, making himself feel better about marrying a drip like Mary (who by the way gave him a daughter he barely knows nor cares about.) At every turn, he justifies his own sad life by shitting on every woman in his vicinity. "Flo was trying to be a pal, show how well she understood a man's problems. The trouble with a 'good egg' was that you had to talk to them all the time, you couldn't just drive along, thinking your own thoughts in silence, the way you could with a girl like Mary who wasn't and never could be a pal." (Wives are for status, mistresses are for fucking. There is simply no room in a man's life for a woman who can hold her own.) Although here is a devastating quote from Flo, who I guess isn't as intelligent as she seems: "I mean your wife doesn't understand you the way I understand Jay. There's no excuse for a man running around when his wife understands him like I do Jay, but in your case--."
Lou's fragile ego and resentful nature were such a turnoff. I found myself narrowing my eyes and shaking my head every few pages. He was really repugnant. On top of hating Flo for classically misogynistic reasons, Lou hates his first wife Francie with almost equal vigor. "He could have given her more, he would have only she made him so boiling mad the way she got his ego down. It was a gift with some women." He sees his first wife's choice of second husband (a lout who spends too much time and money at the horse races) as somehow a reflection on him too. "The little reminder that he had ever had anything to do with a dame that could go for a down-at-heels mug like that dope she finally married. That was the kind of thing that got a man down." Although, assuredly, if she had married an upstanding citizen, it would have made him jealous, another thing that "got a man down."
On top of being a world-class asshole, Lou was also the worst offender of social climbing. Lou just thinks the whole world owes him something. Mary owes him her social contacts and her money, businessmen owe him business success (again, actual business unimportant), waiters and the help owe him the utmost deference. In one great scene, Lou burns with embarrassment and indignation when Mary's rich uncle calls him the wrong name and treats him like a bellboy. Later, this great line: "The waiter fussing around, giving him the 'Mr. Donovan' this and 'Mr. Donovan' that, was soothingly satisfactory." On my lack of paying attention to the business stuff though, I think that actually did the book a favor. Lou's business pursuits being utterly unimportant and opaque just underlined how small Lou and Jay really were. Also, how little the women knew about what their husbands were even up to.
One last truly mind-blowing quote about marriage: "It's the man with the wife troubles that is the luckiest. He can walk out with justice. But what about the rest of us with the wives that stood by us when we got started, and then we change, we grow, and they don't, they just go along, bewildered, watching us change, get rich, get smart, and they're hurt and puzzled and even angry that they can no longer name our favorite dishes." Jesus, if that doesn't describe John and Cynthia Lennon in 1968 I don't know what does. I actually thought of Cynthia's book a lot while reading this one. In both books, marriage is truly this trap, and adultery a trap of the men's own making. And apparently even thinking about talking to your spouse about your deep unhappiness in that marriage is a big no. It is so obvious that Lou (and John) feel guilty but they make themselves feel better by telling these tales about the unfuckability of their wives, of their nagging, of men's primal needs, etc. Cyn says she believes John's guilt at leaving her and Julian fueled his cruelty in the way he proceeded to completely blow everything up, try to blame her, go on to neglect Julian for years. (Oops, this is not a Beatle review.) Meanwhile, Lou blames his spurned wife for "making" him feel this way. Quite the mental gymnastics you have to perform in order to keep sleeping with women who aren't your wife.
Lou Donovan is the self proclaimed nice guy doing boring business deals in [insert industry here, I never even committed it to memory] with his friend, the more caddish Jay Oliver. Although, both men cheat on their wives like it's going out of style. They each have one steady side-girlfriend throughout the novel, which doesn't stop them from trying to pick up others. Jay's girl is Ebie (a very funny name), who needs to pose as Lou's girl when they run into Jay's wife Flo. Lou goes after the continental Mrs. Kameray, very transparently complimentary of Lou and equally transparently looking for a green card to stay in America (by the way it is 1938 and she's Jewish. Shockingly fleeting mention of that fact!) We get a few chapters from Ebie's perspective, waiting around for Jay to call, hating herself doing it, but unable to really live her life, and a few chapters from Lou's second wife Mary, perhaps the mousiest character to ever make her bed and lie in it. Although she gets hers in the end.
The commentary on upperclass marriage was so, so, so, so grim. This is where it got very Dorothy Parker, with this fatalistic criticism of gender roles, skewering both men and women for their part in them. The men are all desperate to get away from their wives, who they married practically under duress thinking they had to pick the most staid and virginal women who they can barely carry on a conversation with. The women meanwhile, both wives mistresses, spend their lives waiting around until these men deign to come home to them. Mary especially was so vanilla and undersexed. "For the charm of her love was what she withheld, just as the basic force of Lou's love was in demanding what would be denied, wanting more, no matter what, than would be given." While her husband goes outside the marriage for sex, Mary thinks of these girlfriends as temptresses who "pretended to like it just to trap him and so betray her, make her refusals seem wrong, his cajoling demands right." How eternally fucked up. Still, marriage is viewed as the ultimate financial score for both genders (especially if you are Lou and you married Mary for her family money.) That justification is so Dorothy Parker too. It doesn't even seem strange or unfair to these characters, they simply can't fathom another way of living their lives because of the comforts it affords them.
The Lou character reminded me a bit of Guy Haines from Strangers on a Train (the not obviously psychopathic one.) At the beginning, you think oh this Jay Oliver character is the cad, the real philanderer compared with the slightly more reasonable-seeming Lou Donovan. But after not too many pages, it becomes clear Lou is the real loser. The way that Dawn Powell gets in his head is interesting too, very Strangers-on-a-Train-esque. I can tell you one thing, Guy Haines would have DETESTED the women in this book too, especially Flo.
Ah Flo. Jay's wife and intellectual equal who Lou relentlessly mocks. Lou pities Jay for having a talkative wife who makes him feel less than. He is constantly referring to her as a battleaxe, a nag, making himself feel better about marrying a drip like Mary (who by the way gave him a daughter he barely knows nor cares about.) At every turn, he justifies his own sad life by shitting on every woman in his vicinity. "Flo was trying to be a pal, show how well she understood a man's problems. The trouble with a 'good egg' was that you had to talk to them all the time, you couldn't just drive along, thinking your own thoughts in silence, the way you could with a girl like Mary who wasn't and never could be a pal." (Wives are for status, mistresses are for fucking. There is simply no room in a man's life for a woman who can hold her own.) Although here is a devastating quote from Flo, who I guess isn't as intelligent as she seems: "I mean your wife doesn't understand you the way I understand Jay. There's no excuse for a man running around when his wife understands him like I do Jay, but in your case--."
Lou's fragile ego and resentful nature were such a turnoff. I found myself narrowing my eyes and shaking my head every few pages. He was really repugnant. On top of hating Flo for classically misogynistic reasons, Lou hates his first wife Francie with almost equal vigor. "He could have given her more, he would have only she made him so boiling mad the way she got his ego down. It was a gift with some women." He sees his first wife's choice of second husband (a lout who spends too much time and money at the horse races) as somehow a reflection on him too. "The little reminder that he had ever had anything to do with a dame that could go for a down-at-heels mug like that dope she finally married. That was the kind of thing that got a man down." Although, assuredly, if she had married an upstanding citizen, it would have made him jealous, another thing that "got a man down."
On top of being a world-class asshole, Lou was also the worst offender of social climbing. Lou just thinks the whole world owes him something. Mary owes him her social contacts and her money, businessmen owe him business success (again, actual business unimportant), waiters and the help owe him the utmost deference. In one great scene, Lou burns with embarrassment and indignation when Mary's rich uncle calls him the wrong name and treats him like a bellboy. Later, this great line: "The waiter fussing around, giving him the 'Mr. Donovan' this and 'Mr. Donovan' that, was soothingly satisfactory." On my lack of paying attention to the business stuff though, I think that actually did the book a favor. Lou's business pursuits being utterly unimportant and opaque just underlined how small Lou and Jay really were. Also, how little the women knew about what their husbands were even up to.
One last truly mind-blowing quote about marriage: "It's the man with the wife troubles that is the luckiest. He can walk out with justice. But what about the rest of us with the wives that stood by us when we got started, and then we change, we grow, and they don't, they just go along, bewildered, watching us change, get rich, get smart, and they're hurt and puzzled and even angry that they can no longer name our favorite dishes." Jesus, if that doesn't describe John and Cynthia Lennon in 1968 I don't know what does. I actually thought of Cynthia's book a lot while reading this one. In both books, marriage is truly this trap, and adultery a trap of the men's own making. And apparently even thinking about talking to your spouse about your deep unhappiness in that marriage is a big no. It is so obvious that Lou (and John) feel guilty but they make themselves feel better by telling these tales about the unfuckability of their wives, of their nagging, of men's primal needs, etc. Cyn says she believes John's guilt at leaving her and Julian fueled his cruelty in the way he proceeded to completely blow everything up, try to blame her, go on to neglect Julian for years. (Oops, this is not a Beatle review.) Meanwhile, Lou blames his spurned wife for "making" him feel this way. Quite the mental gymnastics you have to perform in order to keep sleeping with women who aren't your wife.
May 17, 2017
This novel by Dawn Powell was very well done. Set in NYC, Chicago and a few other places in the USA during the Spanish Civil War it tracks the comings and goings of two hard boiled, hard drinking, womanizing businessman as they try to make money and pick up women, while keeping their wives at bay. Powell is brutal in her assessment of the character flaws of all her creations but the book crackles with sharp dialogue and great set pieces. One feels that you are actually in the gin mills, and nightclubs of 1938 NYC. In many ways times and behaviors have changed but the anachronistic characters carry the same hopes and conflicts of modern men and women. The two male leads are examples of how the hunter gets captured by the game.
October 29, 2017
Young businessmen on the make don't change much over the decades, so this entertaining and insightful novel hasn't loss a bit of its relevance - it's "period" and evergreen at the same time. Aficionados of menswear will have a grand time reading this book, from the very first page where the guys are discussing clocked socks and pink shirts with detachable white collars.
December 10, 2010
A really great book shows us how everything is great and worth to die for
September 10, 2025
Filled with good dialogue, great observations, and more than its share of wit, this book falls flat because it lacks a fully coherent structure and has a vanishingly thin story. Moreover, there's basically nothing in the way of character development, with one exception of a character who pretty much implodes.
It centers around two businessmen from Chicago: Lou and Jay. They are terribly shallow and fast friends, except that they seem to loathe each other. That's OK though, because they loathe everyone else. Both of them are middlemen in business - squeezing as much money as they can out of deals while actually contributing basically nothing. Both are married, but they sleep around whenever they can. They are both thoroughly dislikable but not enough so to make you care.
In their orbits are their wives and their main mistresses. Of these, Lou's wife is fairly sympathetic. She's a cold fish but she thinks she needs to be such to hold onto her position. This is a fairly decent portrait of a woman trapped who is capable of doing more. Lou's mistress, an Eastern European woman, of some Jewish ancestry, who needs to marry an American so she can stay in the country and avoid Hitler. She is not particularly likable, but her situation is entirely understandable. She is trading her body in what is a business transaction, but one necessary for her survival. Jay's wife is the worst character in the book, without a redeeming moment. His girlfriend, Edie, however, fares a bit better. On reflection, she is the sucker who gets taken advantage of again and again. A promising artist, she basically throws away her art and her career for Jay, all the while knowing that he is worthless.
From the above, it seems like there's material here for a very good novel. But it almost completely lacks focus. Powell has some genuine insights into most of these characters. The problem is that she keeps shifting the perspective of the novel from one to the next, so that we never get a decent idea of whose story it is (ultimately it is probably Lou's), or why we should care about any of it. Instead, she is like the entomologist who has skewered her subjects on pins and left them there to study, frozen and dead.
The writing is very good. The descriptions are good. The characterizations are pointed and cutting and very well done. And yet the book lacks life, perhaps deliberately so. I'm just not sure that its worthwhile to write a basically shallow book about shallow people.
It centers around two businessmen from Chicago: Lou and Jay. They are terribly shallow and fast friends, except that they seem to loathe each other. That's OK though, because they loathe everyone else. Both of them are middlemen in business - squeezing as much money as they can out of deals while actually contributing basically nothing. Both are married, but they sleep around whenever they can. They are both thoroughly dislikable but not enough so to make you care.
In their orbits are their wives and their main mistresses. Of these, Lou's wife is fairly sympathetic. She's a cold fish but she thinks she needs to be such to hold onto her position. This is a fairly decent portrait of a woman trapped who is capable of doing more. Lou's mistress, an Eastern European woman, of some Jewish ancestry, who needs to marry an American so she can stay in the country and avoid Hitler. She is not particularly likable, but her situation is entirely understandable. She is trading her body in what is a business transaction, but one necessary for her survival. Jay's wife is the worst character in the book, without a redeeming moment. His girlfriend, Edie, however, fares a bit better. On reflection, she is the sucker who gets taken advantage of again and again. A promising artist, she basically throws away her art and her career for Jay, all the while knowing that he is worthless.
From the above, it seems like there's material here for a very good novel. But it almost completely lacks focus. Powell has some genuine insights into most of these characters. The problem is that she keeps shifting the perspective of the novel from one to the next, so that we never get a decent idea of whose story it is (ultimately it is probably Lou's), or why we should care about any of it. Instead, she is like the entomologist who has skewered her subjects on pins and left them there to study, frozen and dead.
The writing is very good. The descriptions are good. The characterizations are pointed and cutting and very well done. And yet the book lacks life, perhaps deliberately so. I'm just not sure that its worthwhile to write a basically shallow book about shallow people.
November 5, 2019
Here's my July 1995 review. Don't remember a thing about it.
A year or so in the life of Lou Donovan, his pal Jay Oliver, their wives, many girlfriends, clients, and relatives, in Chicago and New York. Surprising how mobile the life of someone like Donovan was, in the thirties (the first copyright on the book was 1938). All the business of the novel is conducted in Chicago and New York (and on a train in-between), and the characters pass back and forth regularly between those cities and across the country.
Not a word of profanity, no explicit bedroom scenes, but lives that would now be considered obscene or trashy: the businessmen drink like fish, old and young people congregate in seedy hotels, and much more extra-marital sex goes on than the wedded variety. Powell is as witty as her journals, which I read excerpts from in this month's New Yorker, promised she'd be. There are some very funny scenes, as well as an incredibly sharp vision of the people who live in the fast middle. The women are extraordinarily interesting, and all well drawn: Ebie, the commercial artist in New York, who's throwing her life away on a b-grade sales man (Jay); Mary, the upper-class and mystified, plain-but-dignified wife of Lou; Mrs. Vane, Ebie's slightly crazy mother, and the hag Flo. It's Cheever with humor, and so perhaps it's slightly less cynical than he.
A year or so in the life of Lou Donovan, his pal Jay Oliver, their wives, many girlfriends, clients, and relatives, in Chicago and New York. Surprising how mobile the life of someone like Donovan was, in the thirties (the first copyright on the book was 1938). All the business of the novel is conducted in Chicago and New York (and on a train in-between), and the characters pass back and forth regularly between those cities and across the country.
Not a word of profanity, no explicit bedroom scenes, but lives that would now be considered obscene or trashy: the businessmen drink like fish, old and young people congregate in seedy hotels, and much more extra-marital sex goes on than the wedded variety. Powell is as witty as her journals, which I read excerpts from in this month's New Yorker, promised she'd be. There are some very funny scenes, as well as an incredibly sharp vision of the people who live in the fast middle. The women are extraordinarily interesting, and all well drawn: Ebie, the commercial artist in New York, who's throwing her life away on a b-grade sales man (Jay); Mary, the upper-class and mystified, plain-but-dignified wife of Lou; Mrs. Vane, Ebie's slightly crazy mother, and the hag Flo. It's Cheever with humor, and so perhaps it's slightly less cynical than he.
May 30, 2025
Written in 1940, this novel feels at times like F. Scott Fitzgerald writing an episode arc for Mad Men. The satire is pointed, the characters unlikable though we do occasionally have sympathy for them, and the narrative flow presses forward all the time, though there isn't much of a plot. Two friends have problems with their wives, their mistresses and to a lesser degree, their businesses. We are dropped in right in the middle of things with backstory only sometimes filled out, and it can be difficult to tell how much time is passing between chapters. Similarly, the novel ends at what feels like a random moment, in ambiguity with nothing tied up. It's maybe best read as a record of the striving of upper middle class men who aren't really sure what they want, but know they want something different from what they have. The women, who are not ignored, know a bit more about themselves but are not really any more admirable than the men. About halfway through, I almost gave up, but when the book's resemblance to Fitzgerald in substance and style (not Gatsby but some of the other, lesser novels) hit me, I continued. I'm glad to have read a Dawn Powell novel but I don't know I need to read any others.
April 1, 2020
My second Dawn Powell, as enjoyable as the first (The Golden Spur) but slightly less satisfying, either because her trademark wit is getting familiar, or because the story is less intricately woven. This time the principals are 2 Chicago businessmen, Jay and Lou. Jay is married to a loud and vulgar woman, Flo, while Lou has married into the family of a rich and well-respected judge. Although Lou admires the impeccable manners of his wife Mary and likes to boast of her connections, he is a complete philistine and hates spending time at her musical soirees. Like Jay, all he really likes is cards, tarts and booze. While brokering a deal in New York, he falls into the clutches of a European adventuress, Trina Kameray, who leads him a merry dance. Meanwhile his first wife Francie, whose existence he has kept hidden from Mary, reappears on the scene with her current husband, a consumptive gambler. Jay's favorite mistress is a commercial artist named Ebie, who tries to put an end to their affair by moving to a farm in Connecticut. However, Jay finds her trail again. Again, this is a lively and fun tale, but less perfectly shaped than "The Golden Spur".
October 3, 2023
This is a portrait of American society ca. 1940 that focuses primarily on 2 businessmen juggling busy careers, their wives and their mistresses. Powell is a fantastic writer--she paints a clear-eyed portrait of the machinations, little lies and power plays that these men go through daily. The women in their lives are many, but include a wife who is fully aware of her husband's infidelity and is unraveling from the misery and loneliness, a scheming mistress desperate for a husband and a green card, and another mistress who is giving up a promising career to be with a man who will probably never marry her.
Interestingly, the war is only hinted at--the business deals, nights of debauchery and petty details of the characters' lives take front seat. Wives and children are definitely at the bottom of the food chain.
This is not a book heavy on plot. It's just a really interesting, wittily composed look at social norms among Midwestern, middle-class people, all striving for something more and coming up short.
Interestingly, the war is only hinted at--the business deals, nights of debauchery and petty details of the characters' lives take front seat. Wives and children are definitely at the bottom of the food chain.
This is not a book heavy on plot. It's just a really interesting, wittily composed look at social norms among Midwestern, middle-class people, all striving for something more and coming up short.
May 22, 2022
Dawn Powell is always amazing, it seems. Structurally, a couple of great characters don’t get as much stage time as one might hope, but the scheming, on the make type of Powell universe is here in full force. Most characters, except Lou’s wife perhaps, lack the sympathetic edge that even Powell’s bitterest satires usually also possess. These characters are a bit less redeemable. But an expect portrait of American salesmen, dealmakers, male and female, on the make and fighting to stay afloat any (usually dodgy) way they can.
Powell is the most unread, best author around. Pick one of her books up today. The Library of America 2 volume set is the best edition. Her work is hard to find except in pricier single editions from the 90s.
Powell is the most unread, best author around. Pick one of her books up today. The Library of America 2 volume set is the best edition. Her work is hard to find except in pricier single editions from the 90s.
January 27, 2019
Someone dumped a bunch of Dawn Powell novels in our apartment lending library, so I have been scarfing them up. Love the below passage - nice to see NYGC angst is ageless - this novel was first published in 1940!
"In a town full of people, the New Yorker's only haven was home, she thought, pleased at being so clever and philosophical with just her own thoughts, and then she wondered if that was what she really thought. That was another angle to her Sunday soliloquies, this thinking things then wondering if that was what she really thought or what she had made up her mind to think, and if so, what was she really thinking behind her thoughts."
"In a town full of people, the New Yorker's only haven was home, she thought, pleased at being so clever and philosophical with just her own thoughts, and then she wondered if that was what she really thought. That was another angle to her Sunday soliloquies, this thinking things then wondering if that was what she really thought or what she had made up her mind to think, and if so, what was she really thinking behind her thoughts."
November 25, 2020
I usually don't like any of the characters in Powell's stories, but oh, the biting wit, satire, and unvarnished look at society is so much fun! She captures New York and the egotistical, seedy world of traveling salesmen. Everyone analyzes each other and why they do what they do, but nobody changes, really learns about themselves, nor improves. Its always enjoyable storytelling and I want to read everything she wrote.
July 28, 2019
"It was frightening to wake up in the morning and know that love did not last, no matter how it was treated. Even a shrew, nagging, ragging, bullying and deprecating the husband out of sheer discontent with her own dream of him, must believe it can go on forever."
Powell's prose is beautiful, her characters vibrant, and the depth of her canon unfortunately finite.
Powell's prose is beautiful, her characters vibrant, and the depth of her canon unfortunately finite.
February 5, 2018
A delicious little read. Why? Because these two salesmen think they're such Casanovas That they can get away with treating their wives any old way they want, and you're just biding your time, enjoying this crafting of lousy characters and waiting for them to get enough rope to hang themselves.
Want to read
December 1, 20201940. [1897-1965]
Good review by Gail Pool in WRB Jan 1996 "Not in Ohio any more"
"Shrewd, intelligent and witty novels about NYC, mostly about writers and publishers, artists and businessmen"
This one, also
A time to be born
The locusts have no king
The wicked Pavilion
The golden Spur
Good review by Gail Pool in WRB Jan 1996 "Not in Ohio any more"
"Shrewd, intelligent and witty novels about NYC, mostly about writers and publishers, artists and businessmen"
This one, also
A time to be born
The locusts have no king
The wicked Pavilion
The golden Spur
December 3, 2020
Hard to find Powell in the UK. Her new York novels a treasure. Full of wry, never cynical, incisive wit.
She cares for her hopeful chancers who mostly drink too much and buzz about Manhattan.Gadgets but not human nature change with the decades. For novels written in the 40's they feel so modern
She cares for her hopeful chancers who mostly drink too much and buzz about Manhattan.Gadgets but not human nature change with the decades. For novels written in the 40's they feel so modern
November 1, 2017
Fairly unpleasant book about philandering businessmen
October 10, 2018
I read an essay that Gore Vidal wrote in praise of Powell, and on its strength I read ANGELS ON TOAST. Not exactly sublime, I thought, but an enjoyable romp.
July 17, 2021
I can scarcely express the pleasure Powell’s writing gives me.
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