“Palermo understands Powell’s mixture of wit and pain, knows the books by heart, has the scholarship down pat, and has written it up in an intelligent and lyrical manner. A smart, affectionate, and never blinkered study of one of America’s great authors.” “The Message of the City is a solid, thoughtful piece of work. Palermo’s familiarity with Dawn Powell’s own writings and with the secondary literature on her life is comprehensive, and she’s integrated her analyses of fact and fiction with exceptional skill. Anyone who reads the book will come away with a clear understanding of why Powell’s New York novels are of continuing interest, both as works of satire and as sharp-eyed fictionalized portraits of her life and times.” “Palermo’s The Message of the City will give Powell fans fresh insights into the woman, her life, and her work. The book will stimulate renewed interest in Powell and garner new fans for the all to often overlooked writer and humorist.” “The novels that she published during this period (1929–1948) represent one of the most extraordinary outpourings of sustained literary artistry that the United States can boast. Powell’s New York-based novels turned a scalpel eye on book publishing, radio, and the press…. Powell was a master of literary psychology, of inwardness, of thought. Her novels depict introspection at a level of insight and imagination comparable to that of Dostoyevsky or Henry James.”
The New Yorker
“[Powell] wrote with the kind of highly attuned, neurotic, slashing wit that others in the business love—she struck out at her craft, her contemporaries, and her own ambitions, and she aimed for the heart.”
New Yorker