The author changes personality depending on her locale; Dance Night partakes of Sherwood Anderson’s wistful mood of small-town disquiet and projects the blurred largeness and helpless emotional force of childhood impressions, whereas Turn, Magic Wheel has the giddiness and acidity of Evelyn Waugh and Aldous Huxley in such smart, edgy romps as Vile Bodies and Antic Hay—send-ups of modern sophistication from a modern, sophisticated standpoint. As Edmund Wilson pointed out in his own attempt, in 1962, to revive Powell’s fading reputation, “She is closer to this high social comedy than to any accepted brand of American humor.”