The current issue of The New Yorker reprints excerpts from the diary kept by American writer Dawn Powell, who died, a couple weeks shy of her 69th birthday, in 1965. She was quite a prolific novelist and short story writer, though she never made any money at it. Happily, her husband, an aspiring poet and actual advertising copywriter, turned all his attention to advertising after their marriage, and she was able to write the books that were largely ignored till after her death. Before reading these diary excerpts in The New Yorker, I'd never read a thing she wrote, and had only heard of her, I think, because she's a character in the journals of Edmund Wilson, which I've read and loved. If memory serves, her appearances in Wilson's journals may be attributed to her wit, beauty, and his desire to bed her. He appears in her diaries, too, and the feeling does not appear to have been reciprocated:
October 11, 1945: Bunny Wilson returned from Greece a few weeks ago and I saw a lot of him. All relations with Bunny are dictated by him--he is the one to name the hour, the place, the subject of conversation. After knowing him slightly several years I finally realize he is not at all what he seemed--he is totally unaware and violently allergic to whatever is going on. He is mystified and annoyed by the simple process of creation; he is furious at the things he does not understand--furious, blind, and bored. What he does not understand is all life that is not in print, so he sees people, invents a literary category for them, then locks them up in it, occasionally peeking at them through the iron bars of the peephole to say: "There you are, you-in-love-with-father, hate-mother type, reacting exactly as your type does and any other way you act will not be observed by me."
He wants to see his ladies alone so he can attack them, leave them chastened and feeling limp, hopeless, unloved, unattractive. He has told them that they are looking well, that usually they look so unkempt, so dowdy; he has told them--on seeing their latest work--that he always felt their best work was done when they were twenty; he has told them that everything they like is impossible; everything they dislike is perfect and a test of intelligence and taste. He beams with joy and well-nourished nerves as he leaves, like a vampire returning from a juicy grave.
And it was not only Wilson, among those above her on the food chain, who attracted her acid observations. Here she is on celebrated New Yorker writers and humorists S.J. Perelman and James Thurber.
February 7, 1943: Saturday, Peter Blume and his wife had an enormous cocktail party. Two famous wits were present. . . .
(Enter Perelman)
Perelman: Dawn, I hear your book is going like blazes. How many copies sold?
Me (lying): Why, I imagine around fifteen thousand.
Perelman: Ah, here's Thurber. You know Dawn.
Thurber: Hello, Dawn, how many copies did your book sell? Fifty thousand?
Me: Well, more like twenty.
Thurber: Understand you got $15,000 from the movies. Shoulda got more. Would've if you'd held out.
Me: Well, it would still all be gone now no matter what I got.
Thurber (glancing around, though almost blind): Big party. Musta set Peter back about fifty bucks. What'd he get for his picture?
Perelman: Do you realize that bastard Cerf takes 20 percent of my play rights, same as he did for "Junior Miss"?
Thurber: Shouldn't do it. Harcourt never took a cent off me. Had it in the contract.
Perelman: I'd like to have lunch with you and discuss that, Jim. Jesus, Jim--20 percent!
Thus does the wit flow from these two talented fellows.
The passing of her husband of 42 years elicits the following notice:
March 8, 1962: Someone asked me about the long marriage to Joe--42 years--and I reflected that he was the only person in the world I found it always a kick to run into on the street.
As for his death, this is a curious thing to say but after 42 years of life together--much of it precarious and crushing--we have been through worse disasters together, and I'm sure Joe would feel the same way about me.
Nice that "someone" asked. Whereas the death of her cat. . . .:
September 29, 1945: My dear cat Perkins died today--very quietly, daintily, a lady wanting to give as little trouble, as possible. She took sick Monday, with chills and bladder trouble, and threw up her fish. She knew and I knew that this was it. I cashed a bad check to take her to Speyer's where the vet gave me pills and medicine to give her which she hated. . . . Finally, she lay on the balcony, exhausted, in the sun. I heard her choke, and she was in a convulsion, but I picked her up and put her in a chair where she managed to fix her sweet eyes on me while I held her paw. . . . It was unbearable.
Joe was in the country. I read Mrs Trollope furiously all night, loving Mrs T for coming to my rescue. I hated even to give up the little soft dead body lying in the chair but fortunately the SPCA came in at Ann Honeycutt's call and took her. Otherwise I would have done away with myself. Perkins seemed the only lovely thing in life that cost nothing, asked nothing, and gave only pleasure.
I feel bad about the cat, but sweet Jesus, Joe might have given some thought to staying in the country. Forty-two years? I bet he was a saint.