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The Golden Spur
If a young man finds his own father inconveniently ordinary, can he choose another? Jonathan Jaimison, the engagingly amoral hero, comes to New York from Silver City, Ohio for exactly such a purpose. Combing through his mother's diaries and the bars and cafes of Greenwich Village, Jonathan seeks out the writer or painter whose youthful indiscretion he believes he might have been, all the while committing numerous indiscretions of his own. By the end of the novel, Jonathan has figured out not only his paternity, but his maternity, and best of all, himself.
Published in 1962, "The Golden Spur" was Dawn Powell's last novel.
Published in 1962, "The Golden Spur" was Dawn Powell's last novel.
264 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1962
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1124 people want to read
About the author
Dawn Powell
44 books339 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 45 reviews
March 21, 2023
Not surprisingly, Powell's final novel is simply a lovely creation.
Ostensibly an uncomplicated tale of a young man - Jonathan Jamison - who decides to travel from a small town in Ohio to New York City to (finally) reunite with his biological father, 'TGS' slowly wends and weaves as a lighthearted story of suspense. Jonathan has little to go on to help him identify Dad but he soon finds himself placed among several likely (to him, anyway) candidates.
His larger aim is self-discovery:
The handful of possible paters belongs to a group of 12 or so characters placed in a pinball machine of a plot. Part of Powell's considerable genius lies in the way she introduces and vividly defines individuals before placing each of them in a bouncy tête-à-tête with the protagonist.
Powell's main figure is not the typical small-town dweeb, susceptible to unfamiliar (and 'wanton') city ways. He has determination. He is also a little too anxious, approximating a Zelig-like tendency for each fatherly contender:
The tone of the novel is rather like the one found in the 1964 film 'The World of Henry Orient'. There's a madcap quality which is simultaneously clear-eyed - as misfit characters maintain a search for something which may not be the moon but is something that will work.
All of this leads to a conclusion reminiscent of Noel Coward, a marvelously, still-modern design for living. It's an ending that would make Coward smile. I know *I* did.
Ostensibly an uncomplicated tale of a young man - Jonathan Jamison - who decides to travel from a small town in Ohio to New York City to (finally) reunite with his biological father, 'TGS' slowly wends and weaves as a lighthearted story of suspense. Jonathan has little to go on to help him identify Dad but he soon finds himself placed among several likely (to him, anyway) candidates.
His larger aim is self-discovery:
"I shan't ask him directly," Jonathan reassured her. "I just want to meet him and find out what he can tell me about my mother, and I can judge from that. If it turns out I'm the heir to a great legal mind, I will know what to expect of myself."It's not that he didn't know his mother but he barely did. The little he knows will ultimately be nothing compared to what becomes her reality as well.
The handful of possible paters belongs to a group of 12 or so characters placed in a pinball machine of a plot. Part of Powell's considerable genius lies in the way she introduces and vividly defines individuals before placing each of them in a bouncy tête-à-tête with the protagonist.
Powell's main figure is not the typical small-town dweeb, susceptible to unfamiliar (and 'wanton') city ways. He has determination. He is also a little too anxious, approximating a Zelig-like tendency for each fatherly contender:
Jonathan was always susceptible to other people's mannerisms and he was already handling his cigarette in the same way George did, waving it like a baton to illustrate some remark, then plunging it up to his lips as if to stop an emergency hole in the dike. George, suddenly glancing over, caught Jonathan in the very act of synchronizing the gesture with his, and smiled.Powell's story is set in New York City's bygone era of the last century; a time and place she knew and loved well, one overrun with creative bohemian types. She embraces these types (and their eccentricities) - but more than that: she offers up unexpected acts of kindness to those very much deserving of a second chance.
The tone of the novel is rather like the one found in the 1964 film 'The World of Henry Orient'. There's a madcap quality which is simultaneously clear-eyed - as misfit characters maintain a search for something which may not be the moon but is something that will work.
All of this leads to a conclusion reminiscent of Noel Coward, a marvelously, still-modern design for living. It's an ending that would make Coward smile. I know *I* did.
March 21, 2023
A Rediscovered American Writer
One of the joys of reading is the opportunity of finding for oneself authors that have long been obscure or overlooked. I came to Dawn Powell's work with expectations of such a reward. I knew that the Library of America had saw fit to publish two volumes of her work and that Tim Page, Washington Post classical music critic, had edited the volumes and written a biography. I was eager to learn more.
Dawn Powell grew up in rural Ohio and moved to Greenwich Village as a young woman and lived a bohemian life. She wrote 15 novels between the 1930s and the early 1960s mostly set in rural Ohio and Greenwich Village, which were little noted during her life. She has been "rediscovered" and praised highly by some.
Dawn Powell's "The Golden Spur" was her last novel and the first book of hers I read. The book tells the story of Jonathan Jamison who, at the age of 26 leaves his Ohio home in search of his father in Greenwich Village. Jonathan's mother had worked as a typist briefly in the Village before she returned home and married what she found a rather conventional man. She delivered prematurely and told Jonathan that his true father was in New York. And Jonathan goes to search for his father --- and himself.
The book centers around The Golden Spur, a bar in Greenwich Village frequented by artists and literary types. (It had been frequented by Jonathan's mother in her New York days). We meet a cast of characters who become involved with Jonathan, including Hugow, the bohemian modern painter of questionable talent, a succession of Hugow's former lovers, some of whom are bedded by Johnathan, failed literary critics, academics, has-beens and never wases. We also meet an elderly woman named Claire Van Orphen, the writer for whom Johnathan's mother worked briefly. She befriends Johnathan and is instrumental in his search.
I couldn't recommend reading this book for the story-line. It is muddled and hard to follow at times. Nevertheless, I came away from the book thinking that my search to discover a new author had been rewarded.
This book is written in a beautiful clear prose. Each line tells and each word is in place. It is a joy to read. The satire in the book is uncompromising and biting. Because the book is a satire, the characters are somewhat one-sided. In addition, I get the impression that Dawn Powell put some part of herself (but not her whole character) in each of the people in her book-- the young person (Jonathan Jamison) leaving rural Ohio for a new life in New York City, the young sexually active women in the Village, the struggling artists, the aging unsuccessful writer to take some examples. Thus I found the characterization effective.
The book works better as a series of miniature episodes than as a connected novel. Each scene is tightly written and convincing written, as I indicated, in a lively and supple style. I got absorbed in the book page by page and incident by incident. Possibly as a result of this, there were times when I lost the thread of the story and the interrelationship of the characters.
The best part of the book, besides the writing style, is the picture drawn of Greenwich Village. The picture of life in the bars and of artists, some good some not-so-good, struggling in flats with their women, their friends and their agents is precious. Dawn Powell knew the life she described. Again, most of the characters, from the young man, Jonathan Jamison, through the women, through the aging Ms. Van Orphen, were aspects of Dawn Powell herself, transmitted into one character or the other.
This is a frothy, light book not without its flaws. But I came away with the sense of discovery for which I had hoped. Dawn Powell deserves to be read.
Robin Friedman
One of the joys of reading is the opportunity of finding for oneself authors that have long been obscure or overlooked. I came to Dawn Powell's work with expectations of such a reward. I knew that the Library of America had saw fit to publish two volumes of her work and that Tim Page, Washington Post classical music critic, had edited the volumes and written a biography. I was eager to learn more.
Dawn Powell grew up in rural Ohio and moved to Greenwich Village as a young woman and lived a bohemian life. She wrote 15 novels between the 1930s and the early 1960s mostly set in rural Ohio and Greenwich Village, which were little noted during her life. She has been "rediscovered" and praised highly by some.
Dawn Powell's "The Golden Spur" was her last novel and the first book of hers I read. The book tells the story of Jonathan Jamison who, at the age of 26 leaves his Ohio home in search of his father in Greenwich Village. Jonathan's mother had worked as a typist briefly in the Village before she returned home and married what she found a rather conventional man. She delivered prematurely and told Jonathan that his true father was in New York. And Jonathan goes to search for his father --- and himself.
The book centers around The Golden Spur, a bar in Greenwich Village frequented by artists and literary types. (It had been frequented by Jonathan's mother in her New York days). We meet a cast of characters who become involved with Jonathan, including Hugow, the bohemian modern painter of questionable talent, a succession of Hugow's former lovers, some of whom are bedded by Johnathan, failed literary critics, academics, has-beens and never wases. We also meet an elderly woman named Claire Van Orphen, the writer for whom Johnathan's mother worked briefly. She befriends Johnathan and is instrumental in his search.
I couldn't recommend reading this book for the story-line. It is muddled and hard to follow at times. Nevertheless, I came away from the book thinking that my search to discover a new author had been rewarded.
This book is written in a beautiful clear prose. Each line tells and each word is in place. It is a joy to read. The satire in the book is uncompromising and biting. Because the book is a satire, the characters are somewhat one-sided. In addition, I get the impression that Dawn Powell put some part of herself (but not her whole character) in each of the people in her book-- the young person (Jonathan Jamison) leaving rural Ohio for a new life in New York City, the young sexually active women in the Village, the struggling artists, the aging unsuccessful writer to take some examples. Thus I found the characterization effective.
The book works better as a series of miniature episodes than as a connected novel. Each scene is tightly written and convincing written, as I indicated, in a lively and supple style. I got absorbed in the book page by page and incident by incident. Possibly as a result of this, there were times when I lost the thread of the story and the interrelationship of the characters.
The best part of the book, besides the writing style, is the picture drawn of Greenwich Village. The picture of life in the bars and of artists, some good some not-so-good, struggling in flats with their women, their friends and their agents is precious. Dawn Powell knew the life she described. Again, most of the characters, from the young man, Jonathan Jamison, through the women, through the aging Ms. Van Orphen, were aspects of Dawn Powell herself, transmitted into one character or the other.
This is a frothy, light book not without its flaws. But I came away with the sense of discovery for which I had hoped. Dawn Powell deserves to be read.
Robin Friedman
May 9, 2009
Dawn Powell is great because there is emotional honesty and observation in her jokes. They entertain on the level of slight-of-tongue word play, but her snarky gibes at pomposity; her thoughtful calling attention to the arbitrary, absurd and incongruous in life; and the occasional glimpse of a character’s hidden mischievous motivations invigorate her humor with a depth and power that is rare in comic lit. Not mean at all, but, I'd say, accurate in its portrayal of oft-contradictory and befuddling human behavior. She once quipped: “True wit should break a wise man's heart.” And hers does! The Golden Spur is my first Powell read, but it shant be my last. She is smart, astute, a master storyteller and a deft crafter of dramatic/comedic twists. Like a yummy key lime tart, Powell is savory, sweet, and inimitable.
May 15, 2011
The introduction to the set of Dawn Powell's short stories I recently read explained that she didn't think very highly of her own work in that format and wrote them mainly to earn money while she got on with her novels which she took more seriously. On the surface, her novels have a lot of similarities - satirical observations of the same striving and largely unsuccessful artists and writers stumbling around Greenwich Village. But she does take on a more sustained and ambitious theme here; the extent to which artists (but really anyone) have to reinvent themselves on the way to adulthood to get out from under their families and define a self.
The main character here comes to New York from Ohio with the knowledge that his father is not really his father and his mother returned from a couple of years in bohemian New York in the late 1920s two months pregnant and married the patiently waiting guy back home. As our boy Jonathan sleuths around his mother's past, gradually revealing his mission, virtually every male character in the book of the right age emerges as a possibility, all of them in a quite self-congratulatory manner (though it is clear that almost all were too drunk at the time to really remember) - his choosing between the identities of the various putative fathers is explored both comedically and seriously. The theme is mirrored by the daughter of one of the men, who in turn has developed a career as an actress under a pseudonym, entirely unknown to her socially correct Connecticut parents.
The main character here comes to New York from Ohio with the knowledge that his father is not really his father and his mother returned from a couple of years in bohemian New York in the late 1920s two months pregnant and married the patiently waiting guy back home. As our boy Jonathan sleuths around his mother's past, gradually revealing his mission, virtually every male character in the book of the right age emerges as a possibility, all of them in a quite self-congratulatory manner (though it is clear that almost all were too drunk at the time to really remember) - his choosing between the identities of the various putative fathers is explored both comedically and seriously. The theme is mirrored by the daughter of one of the men, who in turn has developed a career as an actress under a pseudonym, entirely unknown to her socially correct Connecticut parents.
February 21, 2012
This book made me nostalgic for a New York I've never actually seen. It's wild, though, because the geographical points are still there, so you can almost feel the past rising up through the East Village of today to transport you back to decades and decades before. Dawn Powell's writing is, as ever, vibrant, rich, detailed, funny, surprising and oddly contemporary while simultaneously being from so long ago.
I didn't want it to be over so I picked up The Wicked Pavilion and re-read it as soon as I finished The Golden Spur. This was a funny transition, as they both center around a drinking hole. The Wicked Pavilion centers on a cafe; The Golden Spur is a bar. They also both deal with visual arts and artists. I wonder if the visual arts were Powell's way of talking about the writers she spent a lot of her time with or maybe a way of talking about her own art. Anyway, I loved this one. It's a lot more singular than Wicked Pavilion in that it follows one character's pursuit, so it might actually be more satisfying in terms of how things resolve.
I didn't want it to be over so I picked up The Wicked Pavilion and re-read it as soon as I finished The Golden Spur. This was a funny transition, as they both center around a drinking hole. The Wicked Pavilion centers on a cafe; The Golden Spur is a bar. They also both deal with visual arts and artists. I wonder if the visual arts were Powell's way of talking about the writers she spent a lot of her time with or maybe a way of talking about her own art. Anyway, I loved this one. It's a lot more singular than Wicked Pavilion in that it follows one character's pursuit, so it might actually be more satisfying in terms of how things resolve.
August 6, 2017
I really enjoyed the last novel of Dawn Powell's. We are back in Greenwich Village where her eye is the sharpest. A lot has been said that this is the "Cedar Tavern" novel (the bar where the Abstract Expressionist crowd hung out, among others). But it is rather the "How People Make It in New York" novel. The bar "Golden Spur" is there as a gathering place for the many characters, but it is not integral to the story.
The protagonist, Jonathan Jamieson, is a young guy coming to the bright lights of the big city to discover himself. However, unlike Jay McInerney's anti-hero, he escapes degradation as he tries to discover who really impregnated his mother when she came to those same bright lights for a few months. There are many candidates, even though they mostly fail to remember her. He gets adopted in the heads of a few, who wonder what the addition of a bastard to their history would mean. Powell has a lot of fun skewering these guys.
In the end though, it is not the fathers who matter, but his mother and the women he meets. While this would not by any stretch be called a feminist novel, it does do a small bit to tip the scales in that direction than many novels of that period did.
The protagonist, Jonathan Jamieson, is a young guy coming to the bright lights of the big city to discover himself. However, unlike Jay McInerney's anti-hero, he escapes degradation as he tries to discover who really impregnated his mother when she came to those same bright lights for a few months. There are many candidates, even though they mostly fail to remember her. He gets adopted in the heads of a few, who wonder what the addition of a bastard to their history would mean. Powell has a lot of fun skewering these guys.
In the end though, it is not the fathers who matter, but his mother and the women he meets. While this would not by any stretch be called a feminist novel, it does do a small bit to tip the scales in that direction than many novels of that period did.
May 21, 2023
Powell's depictions of the characters in the book, set in New York in the late 1950s, are incisive and unmerciful. She does an excellent job setting and populating the scene. her writing is sharp and funny, with memorable turns of phrase. The narrative, however, is weak and uncompelling. This feels more like a collection of short stories. I was hooked at the start, but my interest flagged as it became apparent that nothing of consequence was likely to occur. Nevertheless, The Golden Spur was worth my time, and Powell is worthy of wider readership than she's currently getting.
January 18, 2023
I read this and Come Back to Sorrento together. I'd never read any of Powell's books before this, and these two are kind of bookends in a way. She's an amazing writer (think Shirley Hazzard exactitude in her sentences), but she also leaves behind a bit of an acid aftertaste. Come Back to Sorrento is amazingly good at portraying small town delusions of grandeur, but at times it's so exact it's almost painful to read. The Golden Spur is funnier, though a bit dated, and a bit jaundiced in its view of life there as well. I think she's MOST perceptive in delineating her characters, and appreciated reading her. I just didn't warm to her as much as many others seem to have done.
September 2, 2020
No está mal pero no ha terminado de engancharme, creo que es porque ninguno de los personajes me ha caído del todo bien.
March 28, 2020
One of the wittiest books I've ever read. Upon discovering that his dead mother was already pregnant when she married his boring, stingy father, Jonathan Jamieson leaves Ohio for NY City in the hope of finding his true genitor. Thanks to his mother's diary, he makes a bee line for the Golden Spur, an East Village bar patronized by literary has beens and artists. Jonathan is immediately coopted by a crowd of more or less lovable frauds. The big shot at the Golden Spur used to be the writer Alvine Harshawe, whom Jonathan would be very keen to adopt as a parent, but Harshawe moved uptown when he became successful and the painter Hugow is the new star. Jonathan moves in with 2 of Hugow's discarded mistresses, Lize and Darcy. At that point, Hugow has been "kidnapped" by his dealer, Cassie Bender. Jonathan gets to meet all of her mother's old friends, employers and potential lovers. All of them have completely forgotten the mousy girl from Ohio who only spent a season in New York 20 years ago, but charmed by Jonathan they invent all sorts of stories about her. Professor Kellsey, a failed academic who has harassed female students all his life, quickly convinces himself that he must be the father of Connie's boy. George Terrence, a successful lawyer who lives in fear of a long ago homosexual romance being revealed to his wife, also welcomes the idea of being Jonathan's father. George's only child is a girl, Amy, who unbeknownst to her parents leads a double life and is trying to become an actress. Under the pseudonym of Iris Angel, she lives in the Village and has an affair with Hugow. Even the literary lion Alvine Harshawe gets sentimental about Jonathan when he realizes that his fourth wife is going to throw him out and make him a laughing stock. Eventually Jamieson Sr arrives in New York with news that Jonathan has inherited a vast fortune from a Major Wedburn, whose funeral Jonathan inadvertently almost attended at the beginning of the book. Major Wedburn sent Connie packing back to Ohio when she became inconveniently pregnant, and took up with Cassie instead. Yet although he sponsored Cassie's gallery, in his will he left all his money to Connie. Out of admiration for Hugow, Jonathan agrees to become Cassie's new partner at the gallery, but quickly gets disenchanted with the snobbish crowd of uptown art lovers. This is quite a romp and my sketchy summary leaves many characters and subplots aside. Among other things "The Golden Spur" is a parody of a Bildungsroman, with Jonathan as a false ingénu shopping around for the kind of father he thinks he deserves. But in the end the world of this novel is a merry-go-round and neither Jonathan nor any of the other characters learns anything. Everybody is on the make and has a very tenuous grasp of the difference between truth and lies, right and wrong. Yet none of these amoral characters is a greater villain than the others. Powell is not a cynic and she seems to have a lot of affection for these imperfect fools who bumble along, hopping in and out of each other's bed and dreaming of love and success without actually doing anything to achieve either. New York itself, and especially Greenwich Village, is a big star of this book, its energy galvanizing its characters never to throw in the towel, but always to bounce back and live to fight another day. This is a truly great book, which would probably have got a lot more critical recognition if it wasn't so damned funny.
November 23, 2020
Lize and Darcy are two young women who befriend Johnathan Jamieson, the protagonist of "The Golden Spur." They befriend Johnathan the first time he shows up there (it's a bar), following leads from his deceased mother's notebook as a place he might find his biological father.
Lize had been the girlfriend of Hugow, an artist who figures largely in this book, but now Hugow has run away from her and Darcy has moved in with him. Now Lize looks for someone else to move in with, Percy Wright, a Wall Street worker whose analyst has recommended he take up painting for therapy. He figures if he gets Hugow's girlfriend, some of Hugow's talent might run off on him.
"Still, his spaniel adoration was consoling. he had inherited his mother's old brownstone house in Brooklyn heights and lived there alone with two floors rented out. He was flattered when lies started leaving her things there, a makeup kit, douche bag, then a suitcase quote just while she was looking for an apartment."
Ugh. This brings back memories from when I was a kid and I would see douche bags hanging on the backs of bathroom doors. I always wondered how they figured squirting some liquid up your vagina would clean out the slime of men's semen. 🤢
Well, Johnathan finds out that his father was a Major so-and-so, who his mother had done some correspondence for, and they had struck up a relationship. Before telling her she should go home and marry her (boring) fiance, he invested some money for her. The Major had died and his funeral was taking place the day Jonathan came to New York from small-town Ohio. The lawyers have been looking for him, all the time he was looking for his father, to give him his inheritance. So, he gives up the search and invests with a gallery owner, Cassie, who has been sponsoring Hugow's work. On the night of the pre-show party, two of the men Johnathan was investigating as possible papas are there, and ready to adopt him, when they're let down by Johnathan's windfall.
"The Hugow opening was a sensational success by Golden Spur standards. 1 minute before 8:00, the hour the party was slated to close, an entire new saloonful of art-lovers roared in from the Muse's farthest reaches. A sea of arms reached in the air for drinks as if for basketballs and passed them over heads of immobilized figures. Museum directors, critics, dilettantes were pushed into the paintings they admired; OldTimers accustomed to snubbing each other found themselves glued together, buttocks to buttocks, lipstick to hairy ear, beard to bra. The barstool artflies took over, and Jonathan's nightmare began.
'jonathan, you stinker, get out the hooch, you know where the bitch keeps it!... Can you imagine that jerk locking up the bar when his old Pals walk in?... Hugow would kill the guy if he knew they were holding out on his old friends... Get it out, you dirty scab.'
the more distinguished guests were being knocked down as they fought for their minks under the mountains of duffel coats, and leather jackets, and there were cries of 'thief!... Get the police... Get hugow! Get a doctor.'
Jonathan's efforts to sneak more bottles into the party only reminded his old buddies that he was in a position now to do even more for them, and they despised him for it.
'I got to have 45 bucks for my loft, Jonny-boy. If I get Hugow to put down a few lines on a card, how much will you pay for it?'
whatever he said or did was wrong and brought forth jeers, none louder than when Cassie obliged him to announce the doors were being locked. He knew they regarded him as an informer now, but he hated himself too, wishing he could be put out with them instead of putting them out. he had looked forward to this great day as a kind of debut for himself, the more so because Cassie had kept postponing it for greater thunder. He would show his old friends that he was going to be a friend indeed. he had hoped to show Hugow too, but the artist had disappeared on some private binge, and Jonathan found himself agreeing with Cassie that an artist should be more responsible, more mature, more considerate."
Cassie has him bounce all but the cream of the party, and once he's done so, he makes his way to Cassie's exclusive quarters:
"Cassie was arranged on her favorite sofa, one plump but shapely leg thrown across the other high enough to reveal chiffon Ruffles and a charming suspicion – no, it couldn't be! – of pubic curls, coquettishly hidden as soon as the peek was offered. One gray millionaire sat at her feet for the view of lower joys, while another leaned over the back of the sofa, gazing down hungryly into the generous picnic of her decolletage. Cassie waved her cigarette holder around both admirers and spoken her lady Agatha accent of the mystique of the art collecting. Jonathan pretended not to see her gracious gesture making room at her feet for him to crouch, look, listen, and learn. he sipped his whiskey doggedly, feeling like a child left with the dreary grown-ups while the other boys were having fun in forbidden playgrounds. These important personages of the art world had no value in themselves, only when presented to men like Hugow for their needs."
"He didn't have to save his life by collaboration with the enemy, did he? He found Percy Wright trying to be sick in Cassie's bathroom.
'it's not the liquor, it's my awful problems!' Percy gasped. 'I mean, naturally I'm terribly flattered that you and Cassie have taken me up and let me meet these great people, but I still admire Hugow – my master, really – and I want to tell him he mustn't blame me for my prices boosting and those reviewers saying he's through, because he isn't. would I still be trying to paint like him if he was through, I mean? And if he is through, where does that leave my work when it's like his?'
Yes, it was a problem, Jonathan agreed.
'I'll make a fortune when my show comes on,' Percy said, 'but nobody likes my money anyway. You'd think it was leprosy, the way Darcy nags me about it. but how can I stop my stuff from selling?'
'you can buy me out,' said jonathan, inspired. 'be a dealer. That's where you belong. everybody you like will like you.'
'you wouldn't sell,' Percy said, cheered at once.
Jonathan handed him a towel filled with ice and a fresh glass of scotch, and the deal was started.
And so, Johnathan rides off into the sunset, all his wants taken care of, all his mistakes forgotten.
This was Powell's last published work. It wasn't as good as some of her other work, but still, it had the delicious cynicism and making fun of pretentious pendejos around at the time (1950s) in New York.
Lize had been the girlfriend of Hugow, an artist who figures largely in this book, but now Hugow has run away from her and Darcy has moved in with him. Now Lize looks for someone else to move in with, Percy Wright, a Wall Street worker whose analyst has recommended he take up painting for therapy. He figures if he gets Hugow's girlfriend, some of Hugow's talent might run off on him.
"Still, his spaniel adoration was consoling. he had inherited his mother's old brownstone house in Brooklyn heights and lived there alone with two floors rented out. He was flattered when lies started leaving her things there, a makeup kit, douche bag, then a suitcase quote just while she was looking for an apartment."
Ugh. This brings back memories from when I was a kid and I would see douche bags hanging on the backs of bathroom doors. I always wondered how they figured squirting some liquid up your vagina would clean out the slime of men's semen. 🤢
Well, Johnathan finds out that his father was a Major so-and-so, who his mother had done some correspondence for, and they had struck up a relationship. Before telling her she should go home and marry her (boring) fiance, he invested some money for her. The Major had died and his funeral was taking place the day Jonathan came to New York from small-town Ohio. The lawyers have been looking for him, all the time he was looking for his father, to give him his inheritance. So, he gives up the search and invests with a gallery owner, Cassie, who has been sponsoring Hugow's work. On the night of the pre-show party, two of the men Johnathan was investigating as possible papas are there, and ready to adopt him, when they're let down by Johnathan's windfall.
"The Hugow opening was a sensational success by Golden Spur standards. 1 minute before 8:00, the hour the party was slated to close, an entire new saloonful of art-lovers roared in from the Muse's farthest reaches. A sea of arms reached in the air for drinks as if for basketballs and passed them over heads of immobilized figures. Museum directors, critics, dilettantes were pushed into the paintings they admired; OldTimers accustomed to snubbing each other found themselves glued together, buttocks to buttocks, lipstick to hairy ear, beard to bra. The barstool artflies took over, and Jonathan's nightmare began.
'jonathan, you stinker, get out the hooch, you know where the bitch keeps it!... Can you imagine that jerk locking up the bar when his old Pals walk in?... Hugow would kill the guy if he knew they were holding out on his old friends... Get it out, you dirty scab.'
the more distinguished guests were being knocked down as they fought for their minks under the mountains of duffel coats, and leather jackets, and there were cries of 'thief!... Get the police... Get hugow! Get a doctor.'
Jonathan's efforts to sneak more bottles into the party only reminded his old buddies that he was in a position now to do even more for them, and they despised him for it.
'I got to have 45 bucks for my loft, Jonny-boy. If I get Hugow to put down a few lines on a card, how much will you pay for it?'
whatever he said or did was wrong and brought forth jeers, none louder than when Cassie obliged him to announce the doors were being locked. He knew they regarded him as an informer now, but he hated himself too, wishing he could be put out with them instead of putting them out. he had looked forward to this great day as a kind of debut for himself, the more so because Cassie had kept postponing it for greater thunder. He would show his old friends that he was going to be a friend indeed. he had hoped to show Hugow too, but the artist had disappeared on some private binge, and Jonathan found himself agreeing with Cassie that an artist should be more responsible, more mature, more considerate."
Cassie has him bounce all but the cream of the party, and once he's done so, he makes his way to Cassie's exclusive quarters:
"Cassie was arranged on her favorite sofa, one plump but shapely leg thrown across the other high enough to reveal chiffon Ruffles and a charming suspicion – no, it couldn't be! – of pubic curls, coquettishly hidden as soon as the peek was offered. One gray millionaire sat at her feet for the view of lower joys, while another leaned over the back of the sofa, gazing down hungryly into the generous picnic of her decolletage. Cassie waved her cigarette holder around both admirers and spoken her lady Agatha accent of the mystique of the art collecting. Jonathan pretended not to see her gracious gesture making room at her feet for him to crouch, look, listen, and learn. he sipped his whiskey doggedly, feeling like a child left with the dreary grown-ups while the other boys were having fun in forbidden playgrounds. These important personages of the art world had no value in themselves, only when presented to men like Hugow for their needs."
"He didn't have to save his life by collaboration with the enemy, did he? He found Percy Wright trying to be sick in Cassie's bathroom.
'it's not the liquor, it's my awful problems!' Percy gasped. 'I mean, naturally I'm terribly flattered that you and Cassie have taken me up and let me meet these great people, but I still admire Hugow – my master, really – and I want to tell him he mustn't blame me for my prices boosting and those reviewers saying he's through, because he isn't. would I still be trying to paint like him if he was through, I mean? And if he is through, where does that leave my work when it's like his?'
Yes, it was a problem, Jonathan agreed.
'I'll make a fortune when my show comes on,' Percy said, 'but nobody likes my money anyway. You'd think it was leprosy, the way Darcy nags me about it. but how can I stop my stuff from selling?'
'you can buy me out,' said jonathan, inspired. 'be a dealer. That's where you belong. everybody you like will like you.'
'you wouldn't sell,' Percy said, cheered at once.
Jonathan handed him a towel filled with ice and a fresh glass of scotch, and the deal was started.
And so, Johnathan rides off into the sunset, all his wants taken care of, all his mistakes forgotten.
This was Powell's last published work. It wasn't as good as some of her other work, but still, it had the delicious cynicism and making fun of pretentious pendejos around at the time (1950s) in New York.
March 17, 2019
"Loving men and love as she did, Cassie had a constant struggle to maintain a proper aloofness. Those handsome, fleshy arms were ever ready to be flung around the nearest animate object while she nuzzled its head in her banquet-style décolletage. It was no feather-bed embrace, however, but more a bruising hug from a statue, for Cassie's flesh had no nonsense about it, a nose could be broken on those marble breasts, and young men, touched by the demonstration of warmth, were surprised to find no cuddle comfort here, but more the implacable rejection of a good unyielding mattress. No soft little-boy cosseting, no waste of affection, there was work to be done. With their heads butting into the inhospitable crannies and curves of Cassie's neck and torso, they would hear her voice, a Charleston-lady coo to the last, rising above them, as far off and seductive as a steamship whistle inviting them to tropic islands. 'This darling man must see me home.' Cassie would be third-personing him fondly, and sometimes, it was said, he was never seen again, and only Cassie could tell whether he had escaped or been broken on the wheel."
Powell's writing is beautiful, clever, and underrated; strong characters with enough plot to advance the narrative.
Powell's writing is beautiful, clever, and underrated; strong characters with enough plot to advance the narrative.
October 12, 2007
Boy comes to the big city to seek his fortune/discover paternity. Dawn Powell is cool, sort of mean but not actually bitter, like Dorothy Parker's far-less-troubled older girl cousin.
This is a cute little moving-to-New-York story that made me chuckle. I think what I liked best about it was being forced to admit that even in the heavily mythologized earlier years of New York City, everyone was just as annoying and ridiculous as they are now. Still, the city sounds like it was a lot more fun then, and makes a much better setting for what, it were written now, would probably be a much duller farce stocked with aspiring artists, wide-eyed hayseed bastards, self-involved Manhattan mucky-mucks, and slutty bohemian barflies. Anyway, it's a fun read.
This is a cute little moving-to-New-York story that made me chuckle. I think what I liked best about it was being forced to admit that even in the heavily mythologized earlier years of New York City, everyone was just as annoying and ridiculous as they are now. Still, the city sounds like it was a lot more fun then, and makes a much better setting for what, it were written now, would probably be a much duller farce stocked with aspiring artists, wide-eyed hayseed bastards, self-involved Manhattan mucky-mucks, and slutty bohemian barflies. Anyway, it's a fun read.
July 4, 2012
This is my favorite Dawn Powell book. It was her final work.
August 24, 2013
One of the most enjoyable books I've ever read.
November 7, 2023
The final work of a journeywoman writer of the 1930-50s who was almost forgotten until her old friend, Gore Vidal, decided to inject life back into her by writing an introduction to her reprinted works in the late 1980s.
The author, Dawn Powell, a transplant from the Midwest, lived most of her life in Greenwich Village, New York, and wrote about what she knew—i.e., the life and times of artists and writers who lived in that ghetto of creativity. This novel, reflects her life somewhat, although it has a male protagonist, a standard of those times if a book was to go anywhere.
Jonathan Jaimieson, of Silver City, Ohio, arrives in New York determined to find his real father. He only has dead mother Connie’s diaries and letters from her short sojourn in New York in the ’30s where she edited and performed secretarial duties (and a bit more on the side) for notable artists, writers, and academics who inhabited and still hover around the Village. Connie, who may be a proxy for Powell, returned to Ohio, pregnant, and married Jaimison Sr. who treated the illegitimate son horribly.
Jonathan gets a job in the Village, writing copy for a historical magazine and shares a studio/flat with two good-time girls, Lize and Darcy, who seem to make a living out of partying and stealing each other’s boyfriends. Soon, Jonathan is dipping his wick into both his flat mates when they run out of men. The Golden Spur bar is his base for meeting the denizens of the Village, a place where artists congregate, and the place purported to be where his mother met his mysterious father.
Several suspected “fathers” emerge, all regulars of the Golden Spur, and this is the most interesting part of the novel, for Powell paints each in excruciating detail. There is Hugow, the painter who has women falling over him willy nilly, including young Lize and Darcy, and who is now shacked up in Cape Cod with his art dealer, Cassie Bender. There is Dr. Kellsey, the academic, who remembers Connie as the student who introduced him to the Spur. There is George Terrance, the lawyer, who hides a secret of homosexuality and has a daughter who acts dumb and demure at home but moonlights as a vampish actress named Iris Angel in the Village; Iris strings along lovers such as Hugow and, most recently, Jonathan who could very well be her biological brother. Finally, there is Alvin Harshawe, bestselling-author who has run out of ideas and needs a reboot. Each of these potential fathers, upon discovering Jonathan’s motive for coming to New York, and for selfish reasons of their own, want to be his biological father, and they compete by making elaborate arrangements for including him in their circles, much to the consternations of wives and other partners.
Other characters also fill the canvas: Earl Jones, world traveler, starving writer, and foil to Alvin, who provides Jonathan with gossip and fodder for his articles. Claire and Bea Van Orphen, fraternal twins; Claire is a writer in need of re-tooling and Bea is a musician, and they need space from each other to develop their creativity despite the homing call of twins to live together. And finally, there is Percy, Lize’s current boyfriend and protegee of Hugow, who wants to be a great painter like his mentor.
Powell visits for long periods with each of the main characters. The plot spins out and becomes convoluted as we get deeper into the novel. POVs, coincidences, and contrivances jump all over the place, and we are grateful that the writing schools hadn’t held sway during Powell’s time and that she was free to tell her story in her own way. And yet, I felt the ending was rushed; Powell seemed like she was running to tie up the loose ends within the word count given to her by her publisher—some characters made half-baked, uncharacteristic exits.
When the mystery “father” arrives out of left field—another contrivance—all suspects are absolved, and Jonathan winds up a rich man, free to consort with Iris—phew! A Dickensian ending? No, for like Hugow, he too realizes that he must “want to want” and that the sterile world of art galleries is not for him. He needs to be at the Golden Spur, where the drunk and derelict accrete, and where real art is to be discovered.
I have seen recent articles on Dawn Powell surface in the media, perhaps a resurgence is afoot. Her writing provides a great view into a world of artists that has now vanished.
The author, Dawn Powell, a transplant from the Midwest, lived most of her life in Greenwich Village, New York, and wrote about what she knew—i.e., the life and times of artists and writers who lived in that ghetto of creativity. This novel, reflects her life somewhat, although it has a male protagonist, a standard of those times if a book was to go anywhere.
Jonathan Jaimieson, of Silver City, Ohio, arrives in New York determined to find his real father. He only has dead mother Connie’s diaries and letters from her short sojourn in New York in the ’30s where she edited and performed secretarial duties (and a bit more on the side) for notable artists, writers, and academics who inhabited and still hover around the Village. Connie, who may be a proxy for Powell, returned to Ohio, pregnant, and married Jaimison Sr. who treated the illegitimate son horribly.
Jonathan gets a job in the Village, writing copy for a historical magazine and shares a studio/flat with two good-time girls, Lize and Darcy, who seem to make a living out of partying and stealing each other’s boyfriends. Soon, Jonathan is dipping his wick into both his flat mates when they run out of men. The Golden Spur bar is his base for meeting the denizens of the Village, a place where artists congregate, and the place purported to be where his mother met his mysterious father.
Several suspected “fathers” emerge, all regulars of the Golden Spur, and this is the most interesting part of the novel, for Powell paints each in excruciating detail. There is Hugow, the painter who has women falling over him willy nilly, including young Lize and Darcy, and who is now shacked up in Cape Cod with his art dealer, Cassie Bender. There is Dr. Kellsey, the academic, who remembers Connie as the student who introduced him to the Spur. There is George Terrance, the lawyer, who hides a secret of homosexuality and has a daughter who acts dumb and demure at home but moonlights as a vampish actress named Iris Angel in the Village; Iris strings along lovers such as Hugow and, most recently, Jonathan who could very well be her biological brother. Finally, there is Alvin Harshawe, bestselling-author who has run out of ideas and needs a reboot. Each of these potential fathers, upon discovering Jonathan’s motive for coming to New York, and for selfish reasons of their own, want to be his biological father, and they compete by making elaborate arrangements for including him in their circles, much to the consternations of wives and other partners.
Other characters also fill the canvas: Earl Jones, world traveler, starving writer, and foil to Alvin, who provides Jonathan with gossip and fodder for his articles. Claire and Bea Van Orphen, fraternal twins; Claire is a writer in need of re-tooling and Bea is a musician, and they need space from each other to develop their creativity despite the homing call of twins to live together. And finally, there is Percy, Lize’s current boyfriend and protegee of Hugow, who wants to be a great painter like his mentor.
Powell visits for long periods with each of the main characters. The plot spins out and becomes convoluted as we get deeper into the novel. POVs, coincidences, and contrivances jump all over the place, and we are grateful that the writing schools hadn’t held sway during Powell’s time and that she was free to tell her story in her own way. And yet, I felt the ending was rushed; Powell seemed like she was running to tie up the loose ends within the word count given to her by her publisher—some characters made half-baked, uncharacteristic exits.
When the mystery “father” arrives out of left field—another contrivance—all suspects are absolved, and Jonathan winds up a rich man, free to consort with Iris—phew! A Dickensian ending? No, for like Hugow, he too realizes that he must “want to want” and that the sterile world of art galleries is not for him. He needs to be at the Golden Spur, where the drunk and derelict accrete, and where real art is to be discovered.
I have seen recent articles on Dawn Powell surface in the media, perhaps a resurgence is afoot. Her writing provides a great view into a world of artists that has now vanished.
November 8, 2021
There's a small army of writers who are famous for not being famous, or at least not famous enough. Some of the famously not known include Barbara Pym, Olivia Manning, Charles Portis, James Salter, and Thomas Berger. Dawn Powell, who wrote novels about New York City's cultural movers and shakers and spear carriers from the 1930's to '60s, is in the vanguard of this group. Gore Vidal championed her in in the late '80s, and from then on her rise to being a celebrated un-famous author was certain. Yes, she truly does deserve to a greater degree of fame.
Powell wrote novels set in the Midwest, where she was born and raised in Dickensian poverty, and New York City, where she lived from the early '20s until her death in 1965. The Golden Spur is a N.Y.C. novel. The main character is Jonathan Jaimison, a Candide-like young man who moves to New York to find his father. He was born illegitimate in Ohio, the son of a woman who lived and worked briefly in New York as a typist in 1928. Based on a few clues provided by his aunt, Jonathan thinks his father might be one of three men she came in contact with: a famous painter, a great writer, and a successful lawyer.
Jaimison's search for his father is the loose framework Powell uses to give us a comic tour of New York's cultural population, from major artists down to the wannabes and the hangers-on. Greenwich Village is the centre of most of the action, which is where Jaimison first lands in NY and begins his quest to determine his parentage. Powell has great fun describing the tired boarding hotels, decrepit artists' studios, and speakeasy-ish bars that the characters move between; they form a kind of coral reef which sustains the city's floating population of mostly penniless artists and writers. The novel's title is that of a Village bar in which Jaimison is properly introduced to the city, and it can also be read as a poetic description of the ambition that drives many of the characters to seek fame and fortune.
Powell's comic tone is pitched just this side of savage. She skillfully dissects the pretensions and foibles of the great and the small, but her obvious affection for her characters and their desperate, sometimes hopeless, chase for success and respect stops her from skewering them too badly. Oddly, she seems to have more sympathy for her male characters, viewing their infidelities and selfishness as part and parcel of the artistic temperament. The women, especially a pair of groupies (before that word was known), often seem ditzy or predatory, or both. Jaimison is the Midwestern naif we follow through the big, bad world of Manhattan, and he's successful as the reader's proxy, but the best character is probably Earl Turner, a middle-aged writer who once had a great future but now begs and cadges his way through life while reflecting bitterly on what might have been.
The end of the novel is kind to almost all of the characters, especially Earl, and Powell leaves us with the idea that what she, and her characters, find most fascinating and enthralling about the cultural whirlwind of New York is its constant change and the struggle to be a part of it.
Powell wrote novels set in the Midwest, where she was born and raised in Dickensian poverty, and New York City, where she lived from the early '20s until her death in 1965. The Golden Spur is a N.Y.C. novel. The main character is Jonathan Jaimison, a Candide-like young man who moves to New York to find his father. He was born illegitimate in Ohio, the son of a woman who lived and worked briefly in New York as a typist in 1928. Based on a few clues provided by his aunt, Jonathan thinks his father might be one of three men she came in contact with: a famous painter, a great writer, and a successful lawyer.
Jaimison's search for his father is the loose framework Powell uses to give us a comic tour of New York's cultural population, from major artists down to the wannabes and the hangers-on. Greenwich Village is the centre of most of the action, which is where Jaimison first lands in NY and begins his quest to determine his parentage. Powell has great fun describing the tired boarding hotels, decrepit artists' studios, and speakeasy-ish bars that the characters move between; they form a kind of coral reef which sustains the city's floating population of mostly penniless artists and writers. The novel's title is that of a Village bar in which Jaimison is properly introduced to the city, and it can also be read as a poetic description of the ambition that drives many of the characters to seek fame and fortune.
Powell's comic tone is pitched just this side of savage. She skillfully dissects the pretensions and foibles of the great and the small, but her obvious affection for her characters and their desperate, sometimes hopeless, chase for success and respect stops her from skewering them too badly. Oddly, she seems to have more sympathy for her male characters, viewing their infidelities and selfishness as part and parcel of the artistic temperament. The women, especially a pair of groupies (before that word was known), often seem ditzy or predatory, or both. Jaimison is the Midwestern naif we follow through the big, bad world of Manhattan, and he's successful as the reader's proxy, but the best character is probably Earl Turner, a middle-aged writer who once had a great future but now begs and cadges his way through life while reflecting bitterly on what might have been.
The end of the novel is kind to almost all of the characters, especially Earl, and Powell leaves us with the idea that what she, and her characters, find most fascinating and enthralling about the cultural whirlwind of New York is its constant change and the struggle to be a part of it.
Read
July 25, 2024Pull quotes/notes
"One was something called Broadway, where dozens of plays opened each season and thousands of people came to see them in an area which today resembles downtown Calcutta without, alas, that subcontinental city's deltine charm and intellectual rigor." (vii) third sentence in to Gore Vidal's intro and I'm having to look up a word
"An enormous busted, green-sweatered girl with a wild bush of hair, black skin-tight pants outlining thick thighs and mighty buttocks, came whooping along ...
The big gorilla girl stopped abruptly,"(6) oh NO, Dawn Powell
"A short muscular girl with ape face and crew-cut," (6) NOPE
"The bartender sighed. 'Ah, what the hell, painting's no kind of work for those guys. They got to let off steam, beat up their girl, kick in a door. It's only human nature as I see it.'
'Sure,' said Jonathan. 'Human nature, that's all.'
'Artists get away with more human nature than anybody else,' Earl muttered morosely to Jonathan." (18)
"Claire saw that the friend was a man over fifty, and she knew from experience that there's nothing irks a man over fifty more than being stuck with a woman his own age. Earl's glum expression agreed with her guess." (70)
"[Earl] was moved to tell Claire of his foolish perfectionism that made his stories too good to sell or for that matter even to write." (73)
"'My God, Sonia, I like to watch life while it's going on, be in it if I can, but Claire won't let you. She's got to drag you back fifty years to those good old days when I'm damned sure I didn't have any fun, watched and chaperoned and shadowed every minute. It's as if she has to have a transfusion from the past every day in order to get through the present, and it makes you feel so old and sunk and hopeless, as if everything's over, the game is up, good-by, world!'" (177)
"'"I knows all that, Beulah," she says (here Beulah imitated the whining ofay lady voice),'" (208)
"'You've got nothing to worry about,' Earl said. 'You're young, you've got looks, you've got a blue suit and a pair of black shoes, hell, the world is your oyster. All you need is a list of bar mitzvahs, walk right in, eat all you want, help yourself to a fat drink, shake hands, say Irving never looked better. You won't starve.'"(228)
"Anita's problem was not a sense of inadequacy in herself but in her feeling overadequate to handle other people's inadequacies. She certainly didn't need a doctor to reassure her of her superiority. What she really wanted was for everybody else to be analyzed into admitting their wretched inferiority." (257)
"Whatever was making her so satisfied made him jealous, but then he was jealous of everybody nowadays, jealous of the President of the United States for all that free rent and gravy, jealous of cops for their freedom to sock anybody who annoyed them," (259) particularly strong considering this was published 1962
"One was something called Broadway, where dozens of plays opened each season and thousands of people came to see them in an area which today resembles downtown Calcutta without, alas, that subcontinental city's deltine charm and intellectual rigor." (vii) third sentence in to Gore Vidal's intro and I'm having to look up a word
"An enormous busted, green-sweatered girl with a wild bush of hair, black skin-tight pants outlining thick thighs and mighty buttocks, came whooping along ...
The big gorilla girl stopped abruptly,"(6) oh NO, Dawn Powell
"A short muscular girl with ape face and crew-cut," (6) NOPE
"The bartender sighed. 'Ah, what the hell, painting's no kind of work for those guys. They got to let off steam, beat up their girl, kick in a door. It's only human nature as I see it.'
'Sure,' said Jonathan. 'Human nature, that's all.'
'Artists get away with more human nature than anybody else,' Earl muttered morosely to Jonathan." (18)
"Claire saw that the friend was a man over fifty, and she knew from experience that there's nothing irks a man over fifty more than being stuck with a woman his own age. Earl's glum expression agreed with her guess." (70)
"[Earl] was moved to tell Claire of his foolish perfectionism that made his stories too good to sell or for that matter even to write." (73)
"'My God, Sonia, I like to watch life while it's going on, be in it if I can, but Claire won't let you. She's got to drag you back fifty years to those good old days when I'm damned sure I didn't have any fun, watched and chaperoned and shadowed every minute. It's as if she has to have a transfusion from the past every day in order to get through the present, and it makes you feel so old and sunk and hopeless, as if everything's over, the game is up, good-by, world!'" (177)
"'"I knows all that, Beulah," she says (here Beulah imitated the whining ofay lady voice),'" (208)
"'You've got nothing to worry about,' Earl said. 'You're young, you've got looks, you've got a blue suit and a pair of black shoes, hell, the world is your oyster. All you need is a list of bar mitzvahs, walk right in, eat all you want, help yourself to a fat drink, shake hands, say Irving never looked better. You won't starve.'"(228)
"Anita's problem was not a sense of inadequacy in herself but in her feeling overadequate to handle other people's inadequacies. She certainly didn't need a doctor to reassure her of her superiority. What she really wanted was for everybody else to be analyzed into admitting their wretched inferiority." (257)
"Whatever was making her so satisfied made him jealous, but then he was jealous of everybody nowadays, jealous of the President of the United States for all that free rent and gravy, jealous of cops for their freedom to sock anybody who annoyed them," (259) particularly strong considering this was published 1962
June 28, 2019
I love mid-20th Century novels. I don't know why. Something about the zeitgeist* of the times. This was a middling example of the genre. Very funny at key moments but there was no hook on which to hang the humor. I'd heard a lot about Powell before reading this and I'd read some shorter pieces that scathed, but this novel realllllly hasn't aged well. Much of the satire falls flat (because satire that is pegged to current events and trends usually doesn't travel well across the decades**) I'll read another of her books if I stumble onto it and I have nothing more interesting at hand, but I can't imagine tracking her down or seeking her out. Her work could remain fallow for all I care.
* I hate this term, but here I am, using it anyway.
** Unless it's genius and this, in my opinion, wasn't.
* I hate this term, but here I am, using it anyway.
** Unless it's genius and this, in my opinion, wasn't.
December 3, 2021
It’s hard to be funny. Not very many comic novels and this one on the art scene in NYC in the 50s is excellent. The Golden Spur is a saloon and also the spur for fame. Young Jonathan comes to town from Ohio looking for his real dad - his mom had, it turns out, a rather lively year in Manhattan in the 20s - and ignites whirling changes in the circle of people he meets. He takes on the characteristics of whoever he’s talking to, makes himself instantly agreeable, and inadvertently solves everyone’s problems - except his own. Powell was an excellent stylist - the plotting is also seamless - a major minor writer.
September 25, 2017
Powell's last and her most curious marvel this far, this one may be my personal favorite for capturing so many themes resonant in my life: the tension between never going home again versus finding a new home that does for you what that previous home did, the celebration of the poor artists and condemnation of the rich leeches that exploit them, homosexuality, sibling drift, and so on. It has an interesting, experimental form by branching out into the characters that intersect with the protagonist, and more. A subtle yet affirming ending brings this Bellow-esque curiosity to its marvelous close. A marvel indeed, it uses mystery and a parody of horror even, making it one of Powell's most measured and crafted stories. Its message will remain with me for quite some time.
July 9, 2022
A snack. New York in the 50s - when ordinary people lived and worked there. The book follows a young man trying to figure out which of a gallery of drunks is his biological father. Deus ex machina ending, but it works.
June 22, 2023
Very similar to The Wicked Pavilion in terms of structure—at once sprawling and circular. But overall it has richer characters, more entertaining, extremely satisfying. I love the way Powell weaves together all these different characters.
July 18, 2019
I didn't want it to end!
November 10, 2019
Pippa Passes meets After Hours.
February 22, 2020
finely written and truly funny
July 25, 2017
Liked this. A lot of coincidences. Read for Alphabet Soup Challenge 2017.
Read
December 8, 2023I have now read two Dawn Powell books, and they share something in common that makes them both enjoyable, but also unfortunately limited. For me, I am missing the key knowledge to really sink my teeth into this one.
What I mean, is that there’s a kind of clear social satire at the heart of this novel. At its broadest I fully engage with it and enjoy it and think there’s a lot of good and funny happening here. But this is also limiting, because I think the book is being more specific about its target than I fully recognize.
But we have in this book a young man who moves to New York filled to the brim with expectations from the stories his mother put into his head of her Bohemian adventures. It’s also well after the war now, so he’s in no danger and has no traumas, and so he’s attempting to relive or to live that life she had, only to find he’s seeking a kind of simulacrum. He’s also hoping to find out who his father is, being the product of a short-lived affair or possibly even one night stand. He settles on a figure who clearly is modeled on a John Steinbeck type figure…sour in his age now and not really wanting to be a new father. Also, there’s no real proof he is his father.
The book is also a take on a certain kind of performative nostalgia, one we’re all too familiar with. And it’s written in a kind of faux historical novel tone that seems to lampoon the same kind of writing we see happening all the time in literature.
What I mean, is that there’s a kind of clear social satire at the heart of this novel. At its broadest I fully engage with it and enjoy it and think there’s a lot of good and funny happening here. But this is also limiting, because I think the book is being more specific about its target than I fully recognize.
But we have in this book a young man who moves to New York filled to the brim with expectations from the stories his mother put into his head of her Bohemian adventures. It’s also well after the war now, so he’s in no danger and has no traumas, and so he’s attempting to relive or to live that life she had, only to find he’s seeking a kind of simulacrum. He’s also hoping to find out who his father is, being the product of a short-lived affair or possibly even one night stand. He settles on a figure who clearly is modeled on a John Steinbeck type figure…sour in his age now and not really wanting to be a new father. Also, there’s no real proof he is his father.
The book is also a take on a certain kind of performative nostalgia, one we’re all too familiar with. And it’s written in a kind of faux historical novel tone that seems to lampoon the same kind of writing we see happening all the time in literature.
February 4, 2013
Juicy pulp fiction of an earlier era. Dawn Powell's oh-so-studiedly scandalous look at the downtown bohemian set has all the trappings of a downscale Danielle Steele - menage a trois, casual partner swapping, buried paternity secrets. It's all delicious and wicked, greatly boosted by Powell's keen insight into human behavior and dead-on characters. Rather than mere pop trash, Powell gives you enough fully realized details to make us believe in and even care for the self-conscious hero, son of an oppressively correct Midwest banking family, who has fled to NYC to uncover his mother's deathbed revelation that he's another man's son. Maybe even a famous man's son.
Jonathan Jamison roots out The Golden Spur, a sort of Chumley's-style saloon where the arty crowd and those who sought their company spend days and nights in dissolution and revenge. There he meets a surprisingly robust number of his mother's former friends and possible lovers. It's all great good fun to see the machinations which ensue, which end rather too neatly if surprisingly well. Well, in the sense that many of the fallen rise once again, and Jonathan gets to sleep around, make a bit of a name for himself, and .... well, to tell you more will spoil the ostensible shock in book's last quarter.
A high-tone beach read.
Jonathan Jamison roots out The Golden Spur, a sort of Chumley's-style saloon where the arty crowd and those who sought their company spend days and nights in dissolution and revenge. There he meets a surprisingly robust number of his mother's former friends and possible lovers. It's all great good fun to see the machinations which ensue, which end rather too neatly if surprisingly well. Well, in the sense that many of the fallen rise once again, and Jonathan gets to sleep around, make a bit of a name for himself, and .... well, to tell you more will spoil the ostensible shock in book's last quarter.
A high-tone beach read.
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