Just like watching an old black and white movie.

A perfect gin martini of a novel: biting, ice-cold, & leaves you wondering wtf you just experienced.

[Read #3 of "2021: My Year of (Mostly) Midcentury Women Writers"]

I wish I could remember who I lent this book to, because I'd really like to read it again. I passed it to at least three or four friends the year that I read it and we all pretty much agreed that it was extraordinary. The first page alone is worth the whole book, if I remember correctly. Dawn Powell writes New York with such precision and wry poetry, it's kind of jaw dropping. Why F. Scott Fitzgerald gets studied in every American high school and Dawn Powell is completely forgotten is a mystery to me.

Starts off really entertaining, contains great passages, but is very uneven and the story sort of peters out. Powell has a habit of driving a point home too much, reiterating it several times when a single statement or subtle reference would have done. The novel could have been cut by have and been more forceful for it. Also, her satire can be entertaining, but somehow lacks focus and bite.

Go to the bookstore or library and buy a Dawn Powell novel now.

You have no excuses anymore. You've never heard of her until now. And now that you have, you must read her.

Dawn Powell's A Time to Be Born is a vicious indictment of the intelligentsia of 30s and 40s New York society. Scratch that. It's a vicious indictment of society period. Imagine a Theodore Dreiser novel (I'm thinking Sister Carrie). Now imagine that Theodore Dreiser novel written by Jane Austen. Now imagine every character in that Jane-Austen-written Dreiser novel utterly drunk, defensive, and self-deceived. Throw in a dash of Vonnegut/Wilde-an wit and you have an idea of what a Dawn Powell novel reads like.

If you like Modernist fiction, especially Modernist fiction featuring loads of drunken, broken people, read A Time to Be Born. Just read it. You're not going to regret it.

Very likely my new favorite author that apparently no one has read. Her witty, satirical prose and social-political commentary on classism and sexism is what I live for. I’ve never read anything quite like it. Truly enjoyable the whole way through.

Would’ve been 5 stars easy but the ending left a little to be desired in my mind. Now I’m just trying to figure out what ending I wanted! Lol. The mark of a great book if I’m still pondering it.

Can’t wait to read more of her work!

Published in 1942, this funny/scathing book goes to show that awful women have always been awful. Also, I have a feeling Dawn Powell's friends were mad when this came out. I will definitely read her other books.