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Padgett Powell
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A Woman Named Drown: A Novel Kindle Edition

by Padgett Powell (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 7 ratings
See all formats and editions
Hailed by Time as an “extravagantly comic” novel, A Woman Named Drown is a wild and strange journey through America’s South that follows a young PhD dropout who falls in with an amateur actress–cum-pool shark
On the brink of earning his doctorate in chemistry, the unnamed narrator decides to chuck it all away in favor of real life. So begins an odd pilgrimage through the American South. In Tennessee, our hero is bewitched by an older, gin-swilling, pool-playing sometimes-actress who claims to have recently starred in a theatrical production about a “woman named Drown.” He moves in with her and just as quickly begins encountering her strange compatriots. Before he knows it, they’re heading farther south together—to Florida—where the data that the dropout scientist is collecting from life’s laboratory is about to get quite contradictory.
Richly influenced by offbeat literary giant Donald Barthelme, Padgett Powell’s A Woman Named Drown offers readers a smorgasbord of literary strangeness—a surreal series of adventures in which nothing much—and yet everything—happens at once.  
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  1. Print length
    180 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Open Road Media
  5. Publication date
    September 10, 2013
  6. File size
    2126 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  10. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Critics and readers lauded Edisto, Powell's first novel, for its originality and witty, mannered prose. His second book does not live up to expectations. The slim tale, narrated by a young man who abandons his doctorate program in chemistry to amass instead "lab notes of life," consists of a series of picaresque encounters with characters often identified only by labels (e.g., "the Veteran", "the Orphan"), none of whom is appealing and all of whom are eccentric to the point of grotesquery. The idiosyncracies of style that were endearing in Edisto are labored here to excess, and the book's campy tone becomes irritating early on. While Powell's ear for Southern speech is impeccable, the dialogue goes nowhere, and the narration is bogged down in murky philosophizing about life as a series of scientific chain reactions or as theater of the absurd. The narrator explains his reaction-series theory of existence in pseudoscientific language that slows an already nearly inert story. While he eventually comes to a somewhat hopeful conclusion about his future, the reader has long since ceased to care.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

“We are on the border of Donald Barthelme’s never-never land. . . . Powell is very funny. His characters are raffish clowns with foul mouths and a kind of crazy sweetness. This is special stuff. There’s a lot of vivid life here.” —People
“Powell’s ear for Southern speech is impeccable.” —Publishers Weekly 

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00EOIB3WS
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Open Road Media; Reprint edition (September 10, 2013)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 10, 2013
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2126 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 180 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 7 ratings

About the author

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Padgett Powell

Padgett Powell

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Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
7 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Richard Weems
4.0 out of 5 stars Uniquely classic
Reviewed in the United States on August 6, 2017
This is a classic tale of a journey of self-discovery, which is ever more classic in that Powell makes it distinct and unique with his own style.

In this one, the narrator is a budding chemist with a safety net of a wealthy but cold family he could fall back on. Rather, he would prefer to unravel the molecular structure of life itself, and as a result joins up with the titular character on a journey to meet other strange and interesting characters. This is a classic travel book, not of landscapes butt of the oddities and permutations of the human animal. Powell's sense of expression and style are always pricking to the ear to keep almost every moment chugging forward. The final chapters slog a bit in trying to wrap everything up a little too neatly, but overall a worthy read.
One person found this helpful
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Fred M. Jeffers
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2016
Verified Purchase
Powell never fails to engage me and this book is no exception.
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JAK
3.0 out of 5 stars What happened to this writer ?
Reviewed in the United States on April 3, 2017
For the most part this is a light ,breezy, fairly funny novel.What elevates it above most similar novels is Powell's prose.He is a real writer.This is not workman like prose which a writer uses to tell a story because he can do no more.The prose soars.Yet at a certain point , the novel veers into slightly creepy territory.The narrator protagonist visits his parents in Louisiana and it's uncomfortable .The parents both seem to be alcoholics and the mother obviously suffers from Alzheimer's .It's at this point that it hit me ,our "hero" who had struck as a genial picaresque character is really something of a jerk and the novel develops a sour edge.Still ,it's an enjoyable work by a good writer.
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maymadre
5.0 out of 5 stars A Woman Named Drown
Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2012
I have just discovered Padgett Powell's books and am glad I did. Great writer and great intertainment. Mr. Powell kept me laughing and crying through out the book.
Can't wait to read his other work.
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