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The Houses of Children
-- First paperback edition.
-- A ghost story unfolds simultaneously across three centuries and two continents; a young cannibal details the daily life and appetites of his clan; a man slowly, and without pain or blood, loses his limbs, his tongue, and his sight. A collection culled from Coleman Dowell's entire career, The Houses of Children displays the wide range of his talent in a dense and beautifully stylistic prose.
-- Coleman Dowell is the author of five novels including Island People and Mrs. October Was Here, and a memoir, A Star-Bright Lie, which won an Editor's Choice Lambda Literary Award.
-- First published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson (1987).
-- A ghost story unfolds simultaneously across three centuries and two continents; a young cannibal details the daily life and appetites of his clan; a man slowly, and without pain or blood, loses his limbs, his tongue, and his sight. A collection culled from Coleman Dowell's entire career, The Houses of Children displays the wide range of his talent in a dense and beautifully stylistic prose.
-- Coleman Dowell is the author of five novels including Island People and Mrs. October Was Here, and a memoir, A Star-Bright Lie, which won an Editor's Choice Lambda Literary Award.
-- First published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson (1987).
199 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
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About the author
Coleman Dowell
20 books9 followersBorn in Kentucky in 1925, Robert Coleman Dowell is one of the great post-war US writers. He is the author of 5 novels including One of the Children is Crying, Island People and Mrs October Was Here.
Coleman Dowell's short stories, as is much of his work, are difficult to contextualize, shatter prior conceptions of what fiction should encompass, and break away from previous fictive forms. Some of the stories include a rich, crafted Gothicism, others a compelling surrealism, and still others an expertly timed lyricism. Dowell's characters are multidimensional, sometimes moving through the stories at metafictional levels. They are always reacting to the alienation of self, attempting to understand flawed beauty, and desperately striving to focus on the numerous splintered fragments of their fractured lives. He died in 1985.
Coleman Dowell's short stories, as is much of his work, are difficult to contextualize, shatter prior conceptions of what fiction should encompass, and break away from previous fictive forms. Some of the stories include a rich, crafted Gothicism, others a compelling surrealism, and still others an expertly timed lyricism. Dowell's characters are multidimensional, sometimes moving through the stories at metafictional levels. They are always reacting to the alienation of self, attempting to understand flawed beauty, and desperately striving to focus on the numerous splintered fragments of their fractured lives. He died in 1985.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 7, 2022
I enjoyed what I read here but don’t have time for the whole collection. It was written at a time when writers often wrote in layers — a surface layer and then the real meaning underneath in codes. I didn’t feel like making the effort to figure it all out.
My tolerance for closeted writing is not infinite. Sad though that Dowell experienced the need for codes and misdirection.
My tolerance for closeted writing is not infinite. Sad though that Dowell experienced the need for codes and misdirection.
July 4, 2021
April 2009
First thing’s first: I hate the cover. It just looks cheap and hideous. Really ugly. But I suppose beggars can’t be choosers: Coleman Dowell seems to be largely unknown and unread, so I guess an ugly book is better than letting him go out of print. Still…meh.
But I digress. About a year ago, I found an ancient copy of Mrs. October Was Here in a clearance bin at a grocery store, of all places, and in my futile search to find out more about Dowell (the man doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page) I found this collection of stories. Read the first one--“Wool Tea”--and returned it to the library without looking at the rest. It wasn’t bad or anything; on the contrary, “Wool Tea” was so good, I didn’t want to read the rest for free. The cover may have been ugly, sure, but I was going to buy the collection before reading any more. It was just that good.
The other stories? Not so much. Oh, none of the stories were really bad or anything, but aside from a small sample of the other titles (“Singing in the Clump,” “I Envy You Your Great Adventure,” maybe “The Great Godalmighty Bird”), none of the stories really held up to the fantastic dreamlike atmosphere of “Wool Tea.” Nothing bad, but nothing I’d really care to reread. I suppose I must’ve fooled myself with high expectations. Still, Dowell is a fairly good writer, and certainly worth reading for his hypnotic prose.
First thing’s first: I hate the cover. It just looks cheap and hideous. Really ugly. But I suppose beggars can’t be choosers: Coleman Dowell seems to be largely unknown and unread, so I guess an ugly book is better than letting him go out of print. Still…meh.
But I digress. About a year ago, I found an ancient copy of Mrs. October Was Here in a clearance bin at a grocery store, of all places, and in my futile search to find out more about Dowell (the man doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page) I found this collection of stories. Read the first one--“Wool Tea”--and returned it to the library without looking at the rest. It wasn’t bad or anything; on the contrary, “Wool Tea” was so good, I didn’t want to read the rest for free. The cover may have been ugly, sure, but I was going to buy the collection before reading any more. It was just that good.
The other stories? Not so much. Oh, none of the stories were really bad or anything, but aside from a small sample of the other titles (“Singing in the Clump,” “I Envy You Your Great Adventure,” maybe “The Great Godalmighty Bird”), none of the stories really held up to the fantastic dreamlike atmosphere of “Wool Tea.” Nothing bad, but nothing I’d really care to reread. I suppose I must’ve fooled myself with high expectations. Still, Dowell is a fairly good writer, and certainly worth reading for his hypnotic prose.
July 23, 2011
Coleman Dowell was my great uncle. His writing is lovely and disturbing. This is the only book of his that I've been able to read all the way through without taking breaks. "Wool Tea" is my favorite story in this collection. I'm still reading my way through the others.
April 8, 2026
"The Silver Swanne" is one of the best. A departure note, and Coleman Dowell must have been bittersweetly ecstatic with this creation and song of death: unique, grandiose, creatively constructed, dizzying, sizzling, agonizing, and explosive linguistically...its "meaning" blowing you through a window.
"Wool Tea" is also good, but a distant second in the collection.
I may read this book again some time to see what happens on a second spin.
Will read "The Silver Swanne" a dozen.
"Wool Tea" is also good, but a distant second in the collection.
I may read this book again some time to see what happens on a second spin.
Will read "The Silver Swanne" a dozen.
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July 23, 2011After reading Edmund White's catty portrait of Coleman Dowell in CITY BOY, I tried Dowell's novel MRS. OCTOBER WAS HERE and couldn't get into it, but these stories are another story: weird, anthropomorphic (one is called "My Father Was a River") they may remind readers of Poe, Capote, Faulkner....or maybe the Grimm Brothers. Anyway, they show there was more to Dowell than White's sketch of an eccentric queen who jumped off his building rather than face old age, who never left his apartment except to pick up black guys, who obsessed about hating Susan Sontag though he'd never met her (Sontag certainly seemed to draw a lot of irrational hatred, for some reason)....
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews