This Is Where You Should Start, With Dawn Powell!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                      "Dance Night," at this point, completes my Dawn Powell project, though I must confess, if I can find "The Wicked Pavilion," I might read that one.

                                          But for those who have never read Dawn Powell, this is the point to start.  All the other novels posted on here are about people making some kind of life--bohemian or upper crust--for themselves, in New York.  But this is after they have arrived, and settled.  "Dance Night" shows how small town life can stifle some, drive others to New York ambitions, or trap people into remaining there.

                                         The town is Lamptown, Ohio, and let me tell you, the Dance Nights refer to Saturday night, where a Mr. Fischer, in an upstairs room, holds dances on Saturday nights.  He officiates over them, and the townspeople flock to these events, because there is nothing else to do, but dance sedately.

                                            Poor Morry Abbott.  He lives with his mother, Elsinore, and can't make a go of anything, even girls!  His father, Charles, is hated by his wife, and believe me, when I say that gets dealt with, it does!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Morry yearns to get out of Lamptown, but never will.  Is he a great big closet case?  Only testing the waters of New York will enable him to find this out; alas, he never will. Sadly, neither will Jen, adopted by the Delaneys--Mama and her son, Bill--now that's a combo there!  Only common in small towns!!!!!!!!!  Jen has the same yearning as Morry; the mother who abandoned her is some kind of actress--and probably prostitute--and Jen wants to take her younger sister, Lil, and go on the road, to have that same kind of life.  Morry idealizes Jen in that way all gay men seem to idealize straight women--I can vouch for that one, dears!!!!!!!!!!!--but the reader begins to realize that both will forever be trapped in that town.  The ones who I think will get out are those not suspected, like Morry's mother, Elsinore, who has more than a hat business as a reason to flee, and Mr. Fischer.

                                    Small town entrapment and big city yearning are a story staple; has been over the course of the last century.  Dawn Powell does not sugar coat; she makes the yearning and entrapment real.  When you read her later novels, you will see how successfully or not such people succeeded in escaping where they came from!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                      This could be my last Dawn Powell--or not.

                                       Should I find "The Wicked Pavilion"--stay tuned!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!