The Story of a Country Boy

You know what? The title of this book didn’t do anything for me either. It sure didn’t jump out at me among the sea of other titles on the library shelf. But its author did. Dawn Powell. I didn’t know anything about her or her works, other than Rory (that is, Rory Gilmore of the TV series Gilmore Girls) recommending it to her friend, saying something about Dorothy Parker (another writer I don’t know much about, I sadly have to admit!). So this was a TV series-influenced pick (I am a bit of a TV addict)! There weren’t too many Powell books in my library and this was the shortest (the others were collections, such as Dawn Powell: Novels 1930-1942 (Library of America) and Dawn Powell: Novels 1944-1962 (Library of America)), a bit too much for a new-to-me author!).

So the title speaks for itself. This is The Story of a Country Boy, and the country boy in question is Christopher Bennett, originally of Bennetsville, and now general manager of Balding Company of Aviland. His story also involves his wife Joy (also of Bennetsville) and their friend Madeleine Greaves who hangs out often with the couple: “in an odd way she translated two strangers to themselves and to each other so that after she left there was no feeling that a third person had been there, it was rather a surprised and comfortable pride that they two could have such fine talks with each other, that they could satisfy each other’s social needs so completely”.

Making their way up the social ladder is a bit of a trial at the start (I loved this passage!), but they eventually fall amongst the right crowd:

“At dinner Joy could scarcely eat for watching with bright, eager eyes the butler’s complicated duties, sliding empty plates out and other empty ones in, and after a great deal of hocus-pocus, finally producing a tiny lamb chop in lace panties and a teaspoon of green peas. It was here they discovered that only common people made the mistake of serving enough to eat at dinner.”

Chris, despite being a general manager, sees himself as a man of the people, once a farm boy, always a farm boy, that sort of thing, despite owning three cars, hiring a gardener/chauffeur and a significant amount of real estate. You can say that he’s a bit deluded about his position in life: “It was inconceivable that he, Chris Bennett, should be lumped with the ‘big shots’ in the men’s minds instead of with the men where he honestly felt he belonged.”

But the workers at the steel factory hardly see him as their friend. He’s no longer the guileless country boy, although perhaps he’s a rather naive general manager in the way he thinks he’s no different from them. It takes a workers’ strike and the Great Depression for him to realise how much things have changed.

I wish I could make the story sound more exciting, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re not rushing out to pick up this book from your library. I mean, I didn’t like Chris Bennett very much, his little-girly wife Joy even less. Madeleine Greaves is a bit of a sad character but she’s the only one in this threesome who has her head on right (well, except when it comes to her feelings for Chris). But there was something about this aura of delusion that surrounds the three of them, this Bennetsville trio, that is intriguing, that made me want to read on – what would happen to Mr General Manager when he realises he’s no man of the people? What about poor lovelorn Madeleine and innocent, too-fond of Dom Benedictine Joy? And Powell has such a deft hand and sly wit that I found myself noting down more passages than I usually do, such as these:

“The gaunt cinnamon-coloured house with its bleak staring windows unrelieved by shutter or inner curtain was a lesson to the swaying willow and blossoming pear trees in the yard, and by a matter of inches briefly rejected the decoration of a giant elm.”

“Neither Chris nor Madeleine could ever regard Joy as an ordinary human creature, to them she would always be a tiny little china blond, a wish fulfilled for a childless Queen, a Thumbelina floating gayly downstream on a lily pad.”

So it was a better read than I expected it to be, and I’m now on the lookout for more books by Dawn Powell! Would you recommend any?

Dawn Powell also wrote:

1925 Whither.
1928 She Walks in Beauty.
1929 The Bride’s House.
1930 Dance Night.
1932 The Tenth Moon (also published as Come Back to Sorrento).
1933 Big Night (play).
1934 Jig Saw: A Comedy (play).
1934 The Story of a Country Boy.
1936 Turn, Magic Wheel.
1938 The Happy Island.
1940 Angels on Toast. .
1942 A Time to Be Born.
1944 My Home Is Far Away.
1948 The Locusts Have No King.
1954 The Wicked Pavilion.
1956 A Man’s Affair, a revision of Angels on Toast.
1957 A Cage for Lovers.
1962 The Golden Spur. .
1994 Dawn Powell At Her Best, ed. Tim Page.
1995 The Diaries of Dawn Powell, 1931–1965, ed. Tim Page.
1998 Sunday, Monday and Always, edited and revised by Tim Page, with four additional uncollected stories.
1999 Selected Letters of Dawn Powell, 1913–1965, ed. Tim Page.
1999 Four Plays, edited by Tim Page and Michael Sexton.
2001 Novels 1930-1942, ed. Tim Page. The Library of America.
2001 Novels 1944-1962, ed. Tim Page

Here’s the Rory Gilmore book list in case you’re interested!

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