The Locusts Have No King

About this book

No one has satirized New York society quite like Dawn Powell and in this classic novel she turns her sharp eye and stinging wit on the literary world and "identifies every sort of publishing type with the patience of a pathologist removing organs for inspection." Frederick Olliver an obscure historian and writer is having an affair with the restively married beautiful and hugely successful playwright Lyle Gaynor. Powell sets a see-saw in motion when Olliver is swept up by the tasteless publishing tycoon Tyson Bricker and his new book makes its way onto to the bestseller lists just as Lyles Broadway career is coming apart. "For decades Dawn Powell was always just on the verge of ceasing to be a cult and becoming a major religion." -- Gore Vidal