A Time to Be Born [Paperback]

Dawn Powell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1998

Set against an atmospheric backdrop of New York City in the months just before America’s entry into World War II, A Time To Be Born is a scathing and hilarious study of cynical New Yorkers stalking each other for various selfish ends. At the center of the story are a wealthy, self-involved newspaper publisher and his scheming, novelist wife, Amanda Keeler. Powell always denied that Amanda Keeler was based upon the real-life Clare Boothe Luce, until years later when she discovered a memo she’d written to herself in 1939 that said, “Why not do a novel on Clare Luce?” Which prompted Powell to write in her diary “Who can I believe? Me or myself?”

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Here's one to savor when you're feeling sour--a reissue of a 1942 novel teeming with egregiously opportunistic, social-climbing Manhattanites who see WW II as just one more cause to manipulate and who are appalled not by Hitler's barbarism but by his mean birth and bad manners. The narcissistic queen bitch of the hour (who Gore Vidal purports is modeled casually on Clare Boothe Luce) is Amanda Keeler Evans: she snatches a newspaper baron from his wife; achieves monumental success as a romance novelist after hubby's papers print rave reviews of the ghost-written book; and, subsequently, pontificates on politics without expertise but to great acclaim. Amanda even finds a way to use newly arrived Vicky Haven, an old chum from her anonymous Ohio past. Unbeknownst to Vicky, she's to serve as beard for Amanda's affair with Ken Saunders, an old beau whom Amanda doesn't love but whom she keeps on a leash to bolster her ego. But sparks ignite between beard and beau, the egotistical newspaper baron seeks revenge against an unfaithful wife and Amanda's empire threatens to fold like a house of cards. Period details are keen (in Vicky's apartment house: "At each landing was the conventional old-time niche designed for easing the passage of coffins up and down stairs"), and Powell's ( The Golden Spur ) spoof of the high and mighty still sizzles half a century after it was written.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Originally published in 1940, 1942, and 1954, respectively, this trio were reprinted by Vintage (Classic Returns, LJ 5/1/90) and the now defunct Yarrow Press (Classic Returns, LJ 4/15/91) in the early 1990s, when Powell experienced a bit of a resurgence only to disappear again. Like many of her works, these satirize New York's pseudointellectual elite. Powell is one of American literature's most lethal wits?she could hold her own against Dorothy Parker any time?and should be in all library collections.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 327 pages
• Publisher: Zoland Books; Steerforth Press ed edition (June 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1883642418
• ISBN-13: 978-1883642419
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13,755 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #34 in Books > Literature & Fiction > United States > 20th Century

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Hurricane In The Halls Of Power, August 6, 2002

By 

J. E. Barnes - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Time to Be Born (Paperback)

Despite its awkward title, Dawn Powell's A Time To Be Born is, after Washington Irving's A Knickerbocker's History of New York, the funniest book in American literature.

The story of the rise and fall of ruthless self-promoter, arch manipulator, and glamour girl Amanda Evans Keeler, the novel seamlessly propels the reader through its deliciously involving plot, dropping brisk, barbed, and piercing bombs of cutting humor all the way. Every other line in this New York City-based minefield is cause for bursts of healthy, uproarious laughter, as one character after another finds their egos and intentions rebuked and thwarted by fate in sardonically appropriate fashion.

While mildly cynical about human nature, the novel's humor thankfully never collapses into cattiness or camp; though sometimes approaching the brittle artifice of Saki or Firbank, Powell continually steers herself back in humanity's direction whenever she veers too far towards improbability or outright farce. And humanity, in Powell's vision as expressed here, exists only among those in the lower ranks--the novel's 'Little Men'--who are naive, gullible, and ignorant, but hopeful.

Powell's understanding of what happens to human beings and human relationships as people rise or force their way through the hierarchies of the power elite is wonderfully astute. Though the story takes place just before World War II, the book is timelessly relevant in its illustration of power structures, protocol, and propriety among the powerful and power-mad. Powell also excels here in illustrating how shrewd, calculating and talented individuals go about creating shining, influential, publically-adored and much-venerated if entirely artificial media personalities for themselves.

Though Powell's work is often compared to that of Muriel Spark, there's literally a world of difference between their novels, though each filled their books with large casts of odd-ball characters and believable eccentrics. Spark's novels always take place in a world where God and the possibility of grace are always present, though sometimes only remotely so. Powell's comic novels take place in a universe in which the question of God has never even been raised; certainly none of Powell's characters ever give the idea of god or grace a first or second thought. In Powell's work, there is little more to the world than what meets the eye, and it is around these glittering prizes that her often phlegmatic characters circle relentlessly.

However, both Powell and Spark write brilliantly about servants and masters, and Powell does a hilarious job here of portraying Hurricane Amanda's servant, frustrated power monger Miss Bemel, who tries to seize control over events even as Amanda insist she buy herself a girdle.

Insightful, perceptive, and almost perfectly structured, A Time To Be Born is also entertainment of the highest form.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fast-Paced Wit, October 14, 1999

By 

tenor1 "js097" (San Francisco) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Time to Be Born (Paperback)

Dawn Powell's wry way with words shines in this satirical novel. She doesn't take long to set her characters in motion towards an obvious collision course, though some of the turns Powell takes to get there are unexpected. My only complaint is that the plot got a little bogged down in the latter stages of the novel as the Amanda Keeler Evans character got her inevitable comeuppance.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A delightful, caustic, and utterly entertaining novel, March 22, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: A Time to Be Born (Paperback)

Like another reviewer, this was my first Powell novel. I enjoyed it immensely and found myself reading it with the eye of a movie camera, imagining what actors of the 40's I would cast. Or Her characters are timeless; her cutting wit is perfect. It not only was entertaining, but profound in its understanding of people. I am anxious to read another Dawn Powell novel.