Novels 1930–1942: Dance Night. Come Back to Sorrento. Turn, Magic Wheel. Angels on Toast. A Time To Be Born

Powell was a noteworthy novelist of mid-20th-century America whose satirical observations and keen sense of the complexities of social relationships unfolded into a perceptive chronicle of the two milieus she knew so well the melancholy frustrations of small-town life in Ohio and the brutal sophistication of uptown Manhattan. She enjoyed a reputation in Greenwich Village literary circles for her wit, humor, compassion, and somewhat hedonistic lifestyle. And yet, despite a steady stream of public...