I have now read two Dawn Powell books, and they share something in common that makes them both enjoyable, but also unfortunately limited. For me, I am missing the key knowledge to really sink my teeth into this one.
What I mean, is that there’s a kind of clear social satire at the heart of this novel. At its broadest I fully engage with it and enjoy it and think there’s a lot of good and funny happening here. But this is also limiting, because I think the book is being more specific about its target than I fully recognize.
But we have in this book a young man who moves to New York filled to the brim with expectations from the stories his mother put into his head of her Bohemian adventures. It’s also well after the war now, so he’s in no danger and has no traumas, and so he’s attempting to relive or to live that life she had, only to find he’s seeking a kind of simulacrum. He’s also hoping to find out who his father is, being the product of a short-lived affair or possibly even one night stand. He settles on a figure who clearly is modeled on a John Steinbeck type figure…sour in his age now and not really wanting to be a new father. Also, there’s no real proof he is his father.
The book is also a take on a certain kind of performative nostalgia, one we’re all too familiar with. And it’s written in a kind of faux historical novel tone that seems to lampoon the same kind of writing we see happening all the time in literature.
(Photo: https://www.amazon.com/Golden-Spur-Dawn-Powell/dp/1883642272/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+golden+spur&qid=1554649063&s=gateway&sr=8-1)