The Locusts Have No King

A glamorous playwright and a bookish academic navigate a reversal of fortunes in this sparkling romantic comedy from Dawn Powell.

“The combination of a waspish sense of satire with a human sense of pathos results in a novel that is highly entertaining and curiously touching.” —New York Times

Dawn Powell turns her unsparing eye and stinging wit on the literary world in this charming romantic comedy following an introverted academic and a high-powered playwright who cannot quite relinquish each other, no matter how different they may be.

Frederick Olliver, an obscure historian and writer, is having an affair with the restively married, beautiful, and hugely successful playwright, Lyle Gaynor. The pair could not be more different. Frederick is happiest among half-finished drafts and forgotten notes, while Lyle moves with ease through glittering first nights and high-powered dinner parties.

But when Frederick’s new book is abruptly seized by his publisher, he is thrust suddenly into the spotlight, transformed from obscure academic into the darling of the very elite he once scorned. At the same time, Lyle’s once unstoppable Broadway career begins to falter. With their relationship strained by this dizzying reversal of fortunes, they must navigate a society obsessed with wealth and status, where success reshapes intimacy and love often comes at a price.

Taking place under the bright lights of Broadway and smoky jazz bars of mid-20th-century New York, Powell’s biting send-up of society “locusts” blends the irresistible satire of Evelyn Waugh and the incisive wit of Muriel Spark.