A TIME TO BE BORN

Satire for sophisticates, as Dawn Powell invests her tart, smart malice in the portrait of a bitch, one Amanda Kealer Evans, who defies classification in any other category. Once again, it is very fine faline sport, with some softer spots which may well increase her reading audience. New York is the scene for Amanda's one-woman suzerainty over men and women, over best sellers (her's outwinded GWTW), over politics, over international affairs, over glamour. Lovely to look at, sharp, cold, she used her marriage to a wealthy newspaper chain owner as a means to national success. He ghosted her into celebrity. Once there, she maintained her prestige, by public works and private selfishness, until she made the mistake of using Vicky Haven as a cover-up for her return to Ken, an old lover. Vicky, ingenuous, and Ken, resenting Amanda's tentacles, find escape in misery-loves-company togetherness, and Amanda is foiled by her own foil. Entertaining reading.