My Home Is Far Away

by Dawn Powell, Tim Page (Foreword)

My Home is Far Away is the most precisely autobiographical of Powell’s fifteen novels. In this family chronicle set in early twentieth century Ohio, young Marcia Willard’ s family struggles to keep up with the rapidly changing times, and Marcia endures disillusionment, cruelty, and betrayal to forge a survivor’s sense of independence. John Updike has compared Powell with Theodore Dreiser, Willa Cather, Sherwood Anderson, “and those other Midwestern writers who felt something epic in the national shift from rural to urban, from provincial sequestration to metropolitan liberation.” By 1941, when Powell set to work on My Home Is Far Away, she was better known for the smart, boozy, bawdy, hilarious send-ups of Manhattan high and low life. She had begun to attain a reputation for high sophistication and nothing could be less “sophisticated” – in the glittering, all-knowing, furiously present-tense, big-city manner Powell had perfected – than My Home Is Far Away .

This was the month of cherries and peaches, of green apples beyond the grape arbor, of little dandelion ghosts in the grass, of sour grass and four-leaf clovers, of still dry heat holding the smell of nasturtiums and dying lilacs. This was the best month of all and the best day. It was not birthday, Easter, Christmas, or picnic, but all these things and something else, something wonderful, something utterly unknown. The two little girls in embroidered white Sunday dresses knew no way to express their secret joy but by whirling each other dizzily over the lawn crying, “We’re moving, we’re moving! We’re moving to London Junction!”

My Home Is Far Away is one of the very few examples of a book written for adults, with an adult command of the language, that maintains the vantage point of a hungry, serious child throughout. It might be likened to a memoir that has been penned not with the usual tranquility of distance but rather with the sense that everything happening to the characters is happening right now, without any promise of eventual escape, without any assurance that childhood, too, shall pass away.
My Home is Far Away had been out of print for sixty years when Steerforth reissued it in 1995. It received immediate widespread acclaim, and was featured on the cover of the New York Times Book Review .

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Classics, Novels, The United States Of America, Literature, Contemporary

295 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1944

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

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading a Century Project 1944

My first Dawn Powell book. Joining other converts.

[robin friedman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Coming Of Age In Rural Ohio

Dawn Powell (1896 -1965) wrote novels about her youth in small town Ohio at the turn of the century and about New York City, where she spent most of her adult life. In general, Powell wrote the New York City novels, such as "Turn Magic Wheel", and "The Locusts Have no King" later in her career. They tend to be sharp satires. Her earlier Ohio novels, such as "Dance Night" and "Come Back to Sorrento", are marked, I think, by a depiction of small town life which is critical and bittersweet, as well as somewhat satirical, and by a restlessness and sense of frustration, ...

Powell worked for three years on "My Home is Far Away" which was published in 1944. She had difficulty with the book, writing and rewriting the various scenes as she tried to fictionalize her biography and turn it into a novel. The book appears in the midst of her New York novels, and it is a throwback in to her earlier books with its setting in Ohio, its focus on childhood, and its bittersweet tone. Powell intended this novel as the first of a three-part trilogy, but the other two volumes never materialized.

Most of Powell's novels seem to me distinctly autobiographical in tone and "My Home is Far away" is particularly so. It tells the story of a family, focusing on three young sisters, Lena, Marcia, and Florrie, their father Harry, their mother Daisy, and, after Daisy's death, their stepmother Idah. There are basically three parts to the story: the period leading to the death of Daisy, and intervening period in which the three girls are raised by their father and assorted other relatives, and a the period after their father remarries and the girls are subjected to a cruel stepmother. When they find they can no longer take the abuse, they leave home and come into their own lives.

The title of the novel, "My Home is Far Away" derives from an Irish song that the girls sing with their mother. The title well captures some of the rootlessness of the family as they move from here to there. It also evokes well the longing for a home life and for a stability which the family, and Dawn Powell, never had.

One of the problems with this book is differentiating the characters of three young girls. On the whole, this is handled effectively. The Dawn Powell character is the middle sister, Marcia, who is plain but highly precocious. The older girl, Lena, is much more sociable and outgoing.

The family moved a great deal from one small Ohio town to another and to different places within various towns. The most effective scenes in the book for me were the pictures of many dingy, run-down hotels and small town back streets during which the girls spent much of their childhood. The father, Harry, was a traveling salesman who, for most of the book, has difficulty holding a job and spending time with his family. He professes to love his family, but doesn't provide well. He spends his time and money hanging around with his friends and, apparently, with women in various towns.

One key moment in the book occurs rather early in it when the girls' mother dies. This scene is beautifully told. Then we see Harry trying to shunt the girls off to various relatives until he finally attempts to care for them himself. The marriage to Idah brings Harry some stability, but at a terrible cost. Idah is a shrewish, jealous stepmother. The two older girls both leave home to get away from her.

This book has some slow moments, but it is a wonderful coming-of-age novel and gives a good picture of the rural Midwest. It is good that Dawn Powell's novels are in print and readily accessible. It is intriguing to think how she might have proceeded in the remaining two projected volumes of her autobiographical trilogy.

Robin Friedman

[Sylvester (Taking a break in 2023) · Rating 5 out of 5]

"An Autobiographical Novel"

So it's not strictly fact. Which leaves me wondering just how much is true. And those unanswered questions are part of Powell's strength. She uses it well. The ending is probably one of the finest examples of leaving the reader hanging (but still satisfied) that I've ever come across. It's very life-like in that respect. I mean, we live in a perpetual state of unresolved feelings, actions, plans, etc, don't we? We know, because we're reading the book, that things must come out somewhat well for Marcia (Dawn). We know that she wrote a whole lot of highly-praised books. So she made something out of herself in spite of everything. But that's the only clue we have.

And Dawn is a skilled writer. I may not read any of her other books, but I will never forget this one. It's not a "happy" story", although not as brutal, in many ways it makes me think of "The Glass Castle" by Jeanette Walls. It shows the depth of a child's helplessness within her family unit in a way that can cause an almost physical sensation of pain. At the same time, the characters are so sympathetically and humorously depicted as to allow for both anger and compassion on the part of the reader. Human beings are complicated, life is difficult, people are interesting and inventive and flawed and full of strangely endearing quirks.

This is a book with punch. I loved it.

[Ann Otto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally published in 1944, Dawn Powell's autobiographical novel introduces us to a large dysfunctional family reminiscent of books by Thomas Woolf, or more recently Jeanette Walls. We are continually frustrated when various members enable others. In this case, the middle child, Marcia, tries to understand life amidst the early death of her mother, a mostly absent ne'er-do-well father, a variety of aunts, uncles, grandparents, and a stepmother whose behavior resembles Cinderella's. As always, Powell, described as Hemingway's favorite author of the 1940's, provides excellent and unique character descriptions.

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not your typical coming-of-age story. There are plenty of writers who show the suffering of children at the hands of adults, and some who can make poetry of neglect and abuse (Dorothy Allison. Charles Dickens.) And even some who refuse to valorize children and their illusions, despite the monstrous self-regard of the adult characters or the wishfulness of the books’ readers (Christina Stead comes immediately to mind). But I think that this book shows, more powerfully than any other book I’ve yet read, how alike and entrapped children and adults are in their desperation for escape. Coming of age, in this book and in many others, signifies the accession of privileges, pleasures, freedoms, and the ability to turn one’s back on the family. But if this is so, then the child’s dream of freedom–often the best thing she has–uncomfortably mirrors that of her neglectful parents, who flee both the families that made them and the families they’d made. Additional thoughts here:

http://alisonkinney.com/2015/07/26/da...

Thanks!

[Denise Mullins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Based loosely upon her early life in turn-of-the-cenury Ohio, Powell's book follows the daily life of middle child Marcia Willard and her two sisters as they stoically struggle through life after their young mother's death. Saddled with a selfish, ne-er do well father who repeatedly dumps them in a variety of unsuitable situations with either total strangers or unwilling/inappropriate relatives, the three lead an existence that is sometimes charmingly humorous but more often reveals pathetic and gut-wrenching negligence.
With Marcia's first person POV narrative reminding one of a more forgiving and less cynical Scout Finch, she deftly manages to convey a story of rural life that captures the pathos and a spirit of survival which this author reiterated through her more than dozen subsequent novels. Although the ending seems rather abrupt, it does allow one to envision a future of limitless possibilities for a young heroine so eager to embrace her next adventure.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I generally don't like stories about small towns in the Midwest, but this novel is so much more. It has one of the best (and most complex) evil stepmother characters I've ever read, and because of that the stepmother is even more malevolent. The father is pretty much incompetent. Marcia, the protagonist, is always getting in trouble for being smart -- she must have cheated because she can't possibly be that smart. And yet it doesn't wallow in her misfortune or slather it on too thickly; the reader always believes that Marcia may well make it. Another impressive feature of this novel is that Powell does a great job of capturing the child's point of view. For most writers, this would probably be their crowning achievement, but Powell also wrote fantastic satire that is even better.

[David Dunlap · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was drawn to this book because the author hailed from Mt. Gilead, OH, a town less than 20 miles from the one in which my mother grew up. I selected this particular novel from the author's œuvres, because it is the most autobiographical. Other than that, I had no idea what to expect...and was I ever surprised! This book is charming, funny, but, at times, sad and poignant as well. The story focuses on the Willard family. As the story opens, the family -- consisting of the charming, but rather ne'er-do-well father Harry; his adoring wife Daisy; and their three daughters, Lena (the beauty), Marcia (the brightest one), and little Florrie (perhaps the sweetest) -- is all packed up, moving to London Junction, where Harry is certain his talents will find ampler play. The children are excited about the move (at least, until they think about what they're leaving behind). A tragedy strikes the Willards in London Junction, and the children find themselves somewhat adrift, caught between their strict, sharp-tongued Aunt Lois and their genial father. -- The novel unfolds the family story, as the girls grow up, having adventures (and MIS-adventures). Marcia finds herself longing to escape London Junction to find her destiny. -- Such a brief overview of the plot gives little indication as to the brilliance of the writing (one doesn't wish to divulge too much and spoil the discoveries each reader will make on his/her own!): Dawn Powell finds (and mines) the humor in the situations, with a deft turn of phrase and brilliant insight. No wonder no less a figure than Gore Vidal applauded her as 'our best comic novelist.' -- Apparently, the author was highly regarded in her lifetime, but her works have since fallen out of favor. Based on my reading of this work, at least, I'd say it's high time for a Powell Revival! Very highly recommended! [In the interest of full disclosure, this is NOT the edition I actually read...]

[Lily · Rating 3 out of 5]

This autobiographical novel, not at all like the other Dawn Powells I've read, gives us a peek into the author's pre-New York, Victorian Ohio childhood in all of its restrictions and genteel society striving. The genteel society striving is actually the biggest through-line in her work. In the New York novels, it's high society. In Ohio, it's respectable society where women's standing must be protected by marriage, men's standing is protected by economic success, and children have literally no value at all.

This book took place around the same time as the Betsy Tacy series, and it was kind of fun to revisit my childhood fascination with this very quaint turn of the century time period. But it was so much darker than Betsy Tacy (though, to be fair, just about everything is darker than Betsy Tacy. Find me the book that is softer.) Dawn Powell's avatar is Marcia Willard, middle child of three girls, whose touchy, testy father can barely keep down a job, moving them all over the state. Her mother dies and her father rather unemotionally ships them off to various relatives before welcoming them back in when he marries rich, the most wicked of wicked stepmothers who from here on out in the novel is referred to as "the new Mrs. Willard" or just "She," with a capital S.

This wicked stepmother was really interesting. I think in any other book, her villainy and vindictiveness would have felt cartoonish and broad. But this society clearly don't give a fuck about child welfare, certainly not about girls. They were whipped and beaten constantly for the most minor transgressions: walking with a heavy footstep, answering "what?" instead of yes, getting caught wearing rouge, any signs of dirt, an adult perceiving even the slightest amount of lip. If these Victorian matrons saw what kind of shit goes on in my classroom, they would pass away. The stepmother clearly wants no part in raising her stepdaughters and resents them for even being there. Because of this, this witch of a stepmother, who at the end throws Marcia out of the house for eavesdropping on her veiled conversation about a woman in town dying from a botched abortion (!!) No one would ever think twice about hurting a child's feelings, or explaining the ways of the world to them, or making sure that they were happy and comfortable. It makes perfect sense this witch of a woman who already wanted her gone just threw her out. She knew she could get away with it as matron of the house, especially since her weak husband, Marcia's father, never once made a parenting decision in his life.

Then there is the Dawn Powell trademark, baldly honest observations about life. Here are some great opinions that will follow this character from the midwest to New York: "What most people wanted was the happiness of having what other people wanted. Then they had the brief moments of an inferior happiness when they only got what they themselves but nobody else wanted." It's so interesting. The Wilson girls (and by extension the Powells) did not grow up rich, but knew that economic comfort was everything. In New York, Dawn Powell takes this to the extreme, hobnobbing with the elite.

Another good one: "It was awful the way your home and your family could take all the joy out of life." And later, "She felt light-headed and gay, the way Papa did when he was going away from home. She thought she must be like Papa, the kind of person who was always glad going away instead of coming home." The characters in Dawn Powell's other novels are by no measure domestic. They do not have a warmth to them. Here is where it all stems from. You can tell that Dawn Powell left Ohio and never looked back. Except she did briefly to write this surprisingly tender account of her earliest, most eager-to-forget-them years.

[Steven Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read several of Dawn Powell's books, the New York ones of wit and observation, and this is the last of her Ohio books…where she shows people who plot their escape to NYC. The story is one of a dysfunctional family whose main character, Marcia Willard, is the middle sister and left out. She copes with a father who is rarely at home and self-absorbed, and also with being shunted from one set of annoying relatives to another, finally landing in a supposed dream of permanency and affluence as her father marries a nurse who made a wise decision to marry an old patient of hers and get his dough before he conked. But Marcia's new mother is a cross between a witch and the demon mother of all neatness nuts.
The last part of the novel shows the escalation of Marcia's desperation and plans to escape from her nutty new mother and a submissive, petty, tuned out father.
Powell has written a very enjoyable story of family, with lots of good one-liners, and Marcia's observation that if you like something, don't tell anyone because they'll take it away from you. She also finds strangers much more trusting than family. It should be a sad, depressing book, but Powell makes it a lively world. The evocation 1900-1911 American manners, language, and fatuousness is on target, and here she reads like Sinclair Lewis's wicked sister. There were many characters you couldn't like, but their self-absorption was understandable, and she paints a world of little people, obsessed with guarding what's theirs. I found myself recalling my own small-town world, and the language and situations very evocative. It was enjoyable and the last sixty pages were hard to put down.

[Alarie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gore Vidal called Powell “our [American] best comic novelist.” I can’t make that claim after reading only one novel, but I do believe it likely. It’s hard to believe that she was forgotten for many years, her books out of print, until some later writers with clout revived her reputation.

This short autobiographical novel was a hoot, which is hard to pull off considering that Marcia, the middle girl with the big brain, infuriatingly good memory, and sassy questions had a childhood rivaling that of Jane Eyre for being cold, deprived, and awful. We meet her at age 5 and leave her at 16. Powell combined many of the things I most enjoy in reading: wit, feminism, coming of age stories (three sisters), autobiography of a writer, talk about her early efforts writing, well-drawn characters and scenes, and language that can be rough and lowbrow one minute and very poetic when that is appropriate. I’m beginning to notice that death scenes and funeral gatherings often bring out the most poetic side of writers. It’s too bad I don’t have Marcia’s memory to provide a list of examples.

Powell was born in 1895, so it’s all the more impressive that she, as a little girl, was feistier and more independent than Jo March. Alcott seems to have had more family support at least, even when the rest of the world was set on holding women back.

[Jim Leckband · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dawn Powell goes back home to Ohio in "My Home is Far Away" after several satirical novels of New York. She sharpened her knives in New York and in this novel she gets down to work and starts cutting.

"My Home is Far Away" is a child's view of growing up in a definitely non-idyllic turn of the 20th Century. Based on her own childhood, Powell is savage in her portrayals of a shiftless father who hardly cares for his daughters and a monster of a step-mother, "She".

Powell's third person narrator omnisciently reprises the adult's rationalizations as they deprive their children. The explanations are easy for us to see through as blatant and horrible lies but the children are left to wondering at the differences between their cruel reality and the promises and explanations they are endlessly given.

In the end the two older daughters finally escape their loveless house and strangely enough I was cheering Marcia even though she was in effect going to be a homeless teen on the streets of Cleveland! I think even there she would find a better family and with her smarts she won't be down for long.

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a treasure. A dysfunctional family memoir from the early 1900's. The author wrote in the early 1930's-1940's and was lost for a time. Her books have been rediscovered. It is story told from perspective of middle girl in three girl family. It is a story of hardship and abuse -told with pluck and spirit -where the worst thing that could happen to a person was to be looked upon with "pity".
The three girls are raised by a mother, a mostly absent traveling salesman father -and never seem to have enough to make ends meet. The mother takes sick and dies and the girls are shuttled from relative to relative in a time when there were no safety nets. Things get worse when the father remarries and the family moves in with a truly wicked stepmother. Berated, punished by a whip, and deprived of anything remotely fun in the home, the girls still manage to find relief in form of adventures with school chums and community. Think of this story as a darker version of Little Women or Little House on the Prairie. Well written and very enjoyable read. Would not have read this if had not been a Reading Group selection. A very pleasant surprise. Interested in other books by Dawn Powell.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book. Sad and funny. Knowing the book is autobiographical makes it more sad than funny, but at least the author survived and wrote this great book about the experience. She seems to have perfectly captured the book's time and place, its many characters, and social dynamics of their world, as far as I can tell. The author brings into sharp relief the terrible powerlessness of children, and disastrous effects of a feckless father on the lives of his family (I read the father as alcoholic, though he certainly has plenty of other "issues," as they say).

The voice of Marcia, stand-in for the author, is so wonderful I am tempted to quote some of her better lines to give you an idea of why I strongly urge you to read this book. (Don't worry, this is not like the movie previews that entice you with all the best bits, so when you see the movie you are let down by the rest of the story.) Here's just one line, and even it is better when you read it in context: "It was too bad it was impossible to be nice people and enjoy life at the same time."

[Reet · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Dawn Powell's semiautobiographical novel. She was the middle of three sisters, born and raised in small Ohio towns, in the early part of the 20th century. Much of the mindcast of these people is familiar to me, born as I was in the Midwest in the middle of the 20th century. They are monochrome people, without culture, monolingual, and not open to change, much like Trumplodytes.
Their mother died of tuberculosis when they were young girls and their mujeriego, travelling salesman father refused to support them and take care of them, dumping them here and there, with relatives, in various hotels, until their welcome was worn out. Running around with various women like a slut, the father ultimately married a woman who treated the girls viciously, making sure they knew they were constantly punished, never allowed to have any possessions, never to have any clothes but rags. This story is heartbreaking, but her tragic childhood gave Dawn Powell a rich source of inspiration from which to create her works.

[William Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fictionalized version of Powell’s semi-nomadic, troubled childhood. Wonderful period detail, tricky to pull off balance of snark and naïveté in protagonist. And an evil stepmother character (in the last third), perfectly drawn. Overall the book is more like Come Back to Sorrento in its small town, parochial focus than the author’s more famous New York novels, but equally satirical. The early chapters might feel slow, but give it a chance and you’re quickly hooked. Even when it seems as if “not much is happening,” tension and plot development are simmering beneath the surface, it turns out. Some unexpected dramatic events in the last several chapters, too. In a way, a younger version of Babbit’s Main Street, though Powell wins out on style. A great read for anyone who’s felt stifled by their childhood, and/or growing up in a small town unappreciated for their intelligence and aspirations.

[Christopher Sutch · Rating 4 out of 5]

An absolutely heartbreaking novel. Some details are deliberately fictionalized, of course, but the bare outlines (judging by the Chronology in the Library of America edition of Powell's novels) are clear. Powell had a tremendously sad and complex early life before running away to a relative's home at age 16; it's pretty clear from this book that she had some cause. The moral is summed up by the thought of the Marcia, the main character and Powell-figure, that strangers are kinder to you than your own family is. Despite an occasional feeling of repetition, and a little suspicion that Powell sometimes just wrote certain scenes out as quickly as possible without crafting or polishing them very much (understandable: this must have been a painful book for her to write), the author's gifts are on good display here, as in everything else I've read by her.

[Peggy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inspired by re-reading Sterling North's Rascal I pulled up a copy of My Home is Far Away from the bedside table. With a recent interest in analyzing the memoir genre I was intrigued by this book in a new way. I appreciate Powell's "autobiographical novel" more every time. She is an incredible writer. Her descriptions are deadly and her ability to capture a character in short strokes is masterful. For example her grandmother's friend Mrs. Carmel is like reading Roald Dahl. Her take on life as middle sister and early 1900's Ohio is fascinating. Not only is she searing in her portraits of others but herself. I have to nominate this is one of the most overlooked coming of age stories ever! I confess to an extra interest in that my own grandmother was born just two years later, also in Ohio, and also suffered (although much less so) at the hands of stepmother.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dawn Powell is a find. This "autobiographical novel" details Powell's upbringing in small-town Ohio in the late 19th century. Very fine characterizations of her family -- her mother, father, sisters, step-mother, grandparents, and others come well and truly alive, as does the experience of growing up as a very bright girl/young woman in an extremely provincial setting. Gore Vidal apparently tried to lead a "Dawn Powell revival" some years back, but I don't think it really took off -- a pity -- I plan to pick up a few of her New York novels (for she ended up in New York, of course) next -- stay tuned!

[Lee Fishman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I learned of this somewhat forgotten author in an NYT article and was moved to locate her book. My Home is Far Away is the story of Marcia, a middle child in small-town Ohio whose expectations based on her experience are, "the middle child never gets picked". Even so, Marcia battles for herself despite a childhood of hardship living with the death of her mother, at the mercy of a feckless father and a hard-hearted, vindictive stepmother. It's sad, funny and only whets your taste for more Dawn Powell.

[Gina Dalfonzo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well written, but terribly sad. Disturbingly, after their mother's death, it seems that not one truly competent adult is left in the children's lives. Their father is a selfish, clueless jerk, and their stepmother is horribly, unrelentingly cruel. I'm not one to blame everything on mental illness, but I truly think she must have been out of her mind. To know this book is autobiographical makes your heart ache. But despite all this, the book ends on a note of genuine hope, and it's a tribute to the author's talent that this hope is still believable.

[Kerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really an enchanting read that I found I couldn't put down. Many good quotes and very intriguing story of growing up in early 1900's in rural America (likely Ohio but can't say for sure). Story told from the viewpoint of a young girl but with adult language. Usually this would bother me but I didn't seem to notice it as the story of these three sisters carried me along. Written in 1944 and largely autographical, it was well told and should have been sad but I found it great fun and a joy to read.

[Molly Price · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had been meaning to check out Dawn Powell, who apparently was the true inspiration behind Dorothy Parker, and I'm so glad I started with her autobiography to see the history behind the author. This book isn't particularly humourous but it is thoroughly engaging and storybook like. I would like to write more about this book but time doesn't allow it so I'll just close with saying if you have any insterest in Ms. Powell, I think this is a great place to start.

[Cynthia Vengraitis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This autobiographical novel (written in 1940s) was extremely sad yet at times really funny. The main character (small girl in Ohio at the turn of the 20th C recounts her upbringing overshadowed by neglect and emotional abuse by mostly her father and then step mother, as other relatives look on and do nothing. Her remembrances retold by an adult author but thru a child's eyes are often comical and spot on true.
This is an author I knew little about but I will seek out more of her writing.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This author died in 1965 in total obscurity; she was buried in an unmarked grave in Potter’s Field in New York. She was “re-discovered” after Gore Vidal wrote an editorial about her work in 1987. I learned about her from a recent newspaper article and am so glad I did. This is her only autobiographical novel; she writes about her extremely unhappy childhood in a small town in Ohio. No wonder that she spent her adult years in New York City. Beautifully written; highly recommended.

[Caty Clifton · Rating 4 out of 5]

thanks to my sister for recommending Dawn Powell, almost forgotten author, this was the first book of hers I've read, small town child's view of family life in Ohio, early 20th century. definately of a time, place and perspective, amazing writing, and somewhat autobiographical. look forward to her New York stories.

[Sam Reaves · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dawn Powell wrote sharp witty satire about New York sophisticates in the thirties and forties; this is her autobiographical novel about growing up in Ohio. In it she pulls off a tough feat: to write about childhood without lapsing into cuteness or sentimentality. Powell's critical reputation revived in the nineties with republication of her novels; she was a fine stylist and keen observer.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny and sad story of a smart little girl growing up in a troubled family in early 20th century Ohio. Said to be autobiographical. I picked this book out of a Little Free Library as I was passing by. I have one other book by Dawn Powell on my shelves which I enjoyed very much, but she is not an author I ever hear or read about. If you enjoy acerbic humor, read a book by Dawn Powell!

[Joanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

"A motherless child has a hard time when the mother is gone
She don't know just where to go
She will keep a running from door to door
A motherless child has a hard old time when the mother is gone
People may try to care for you when the mother is gone
They may try to care for you
No one cares like your mamma do
A motherless child has a hard time when the mother is gone."

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

An "autobiographical novel" by a neglected author, Dawn Powell, who wrote in the 30's and 40's and was often published in The New Yorker. Much of her work is satirical, and her style is impeccable. This novel is more serious, and yet there is much irony at the expense of the self-delusion of adults.