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For Dawn Powell, "Good taste is the consolation for people who have nothing else." Her rapier wit stabs deeply into the pretensions of NYC publishing and its distasteful social whirlpools. Central figure Amanda Keeler is a malign, albeit beautiful, careerist who knows "there are so many things to be gained by trading on sex, and she thought so little of the process," yes -- she must use it again. After marrying the publisher of 16 newspapers she manages and manipulates him as he does her. The result: a mass of misunderstandings and misinformation, but let's not worry: there's another dinner party tonight for the "somebody's" and every smile, every hello must have its payoff. The only thing that can hurt is anonymity. Amanda pretends to welcome a girlhood friend from Ohio in order to reignite a pash w a "nobody" studlet whose ladder for climbing upward is propped against nothing. The confused fella, a sometime editor, believes that "any one foolish enough to make the world his oyster is courting ptomaine." These players are always staggered by "the slightest evidence of human civility." The New Face from Ohio, a reluctant virgin at 26, is ready to be plucked. Praising Dawn Powell, Edmund Wilson wrote that she died (1965), mostly unread, because women could not identify with her characters.Her ingenue is a simpleton, her fella is a moral weakling and Amanda - inspired, it's said, by Clare Boothe Luce - is a monster. If so, this is the book's problem: Amanda lacks the dangerous charm that radiated from Mrs L like nuclear energy. Powell's writing has been likened to that of Muriel Spark: deadly,deadpan and without sentiment. When a ditzed deb tells mum that her fiance is "a terrible bore," the ambitious parent cautions, "You mustnt say things like that -- not until you're married!"

2022-10-07 06:56