The Bride's House [Paperback]

Dawn Powell (Author), Tim Page (Introduction)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Powell is on a roll. Steerforth recently brought her novel The Happy Island back into print (Classic Returns, LJ 11/15/98), and her first biography, Tim Page's Dawn Powell (LJ 9/15/98), was recently published. This 1929 title is the story of a women in love with two men.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 187 pages
• Publisher: Steerforth Press; 1st paperback ed edition (November 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1883642787
• ISBN-13: 978-1883642785
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,514,719 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Bride's House by Dawn Powell, January 10, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Bride's House (Paperback)

There is a touch of the melodramatic to Powell's first important work and least well-received, a novel set in turn-of-the-century rural Ohio - but the darkness is sparked with Powell's unmistakeable genius. True, some passages are florid and the prose rather purple, but there is absolutely no other way to tell so perfectly a tale of deception, betrayal, and fates shortcircuited and lives barely endured. The Truelove family is almost gothic in Powell's portrayal, what with their supressed desires and outward conformity to time and place, and inward turmoils worthy of any grand opera. Powell's strength lies in her many detailed characterizations, the main ones of which are an elderly woman at the end of her days, a middle aged housewife suffering with a secret threatening to destroy her, Vera, a precocious young girl with a wisdom beyond her years, Sophie, the young bride of the title who battles her loves for two men, and Anna, Sophie's antithesis, who upheaves the well-guarded secrets that eventually destroy the family. The twists and turns of the plot kept me reading late into the night, and Powell's descriptions of time and place are provocative and weave a lasting spell. This book would be a tremendous introduction to Powell's ouvre, and is likely the truest to life of her many works, written, as it was, while the married Powell was involved with playwright John Howard Lawson.

4.0 out of 5 stars Dawn Powell: Always worthy of your attention, January 31, 2011

By 

H.D. - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Bride's House (Paperback)

This was Dawn Powell's first published novel, it was written as romantic fiction. As a romance it seems awkward and doesn't ring true. What is worthy about this novel, as with her other works, is her crafting of setting and characters. I especially liked her unflinching portrayals of the children, Bessie, Anna and the spinster sisters. I personally am glad that Powell was not successful at her attempt at the romance market, just think of all the great works that we would have missed if she followed a formula.