More on Dawn Powell.

From a review of the new Edith Wharton biography, ruminations on why hard-drinking, self-promoting dudes like Faulkner, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald got more respect than women like Wharton, Cather, and Powell:

Tim Page, a Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic for The Washington Post, is almost single-handedly responsible for reviving her reputation. Miss Powell, who died in 1965, was virtually unheard of amongst the wider public until Mr. Page wrote a 1998 biography and arranged for many of her 15 novels to be reprinted, including in the Library of America.

Miss Powell's masterpieces include 1936's "Turn, Magic Wheel," a deliciously satirical but sensitive look at literary life in New York, and 1942's "A Time to be Born," a thinly veiled send-up of Clare Boothe Luce. She also wrote novels, like "Come Back to Sorrento," about her Midwestern roots.

"These are great American novels," Mr. Page declares. Mr. Page, who lives in Baltimore, suggests two reasons she didn't receive more acclaim.

"She upset social conservatives with her characters, who tend to sleep around and drink a lot, and are not necessarily admirable role models for anybody," he muses. "Then she ticked off the left because she was not a utopian. When she was writing, a lot of the literary world was left of center. She never believed in revolutions, she never believed in inspirational literature. She saw humanity in a mess — always was, always would be. ... There are still people offended by her willingness to look at life head on."