A blast from the past

I've always been fascinated by authors whose work has been "rediscovered" long after their deaths, even when they had achieved a certain critical and commercial success during their lifetimes. Zora Neale Hurston is one example. Even the novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald were out of print shortly after his death. It wasn't until years or even decades later that their work was reevaluated, reexamined and republished. Another example is Dawn Powell (1896-1965), a prolific author from the 1920's through the early 1960's, who produced a dozen novels, hundreds of short stories and ten plays. At the time of her death, most of her books were out of print and it wasn't until the 1990's when writers such as Gore Vidal championed her work that readers could again enjoy her fiction. Her specialty was satire and perhaps the best example is THE LOCUSTSHAVE NO KING (1948), a novel skewering the publishing industry and New York intelligentsia shortly before the Cold War. It's full of eccentric characters who interact in the small hothouse world of books and Powell doesn't hesitate to expose her characters' foibles and shortcomings. Another example of Powell's New York satire is THE WICKED PAVILION (1954), which depicts a group of people connected by the restaurant that is their second home, the Cafe Julien. Both novels portray a New York that no longer exists and while they definitly aren't to everybody's tastes, those who relish a cynical and satirical view of humanity will want to check them out.