O, How the Wheel Becomes It! - 9781931243230

Powell tells the story in O, How the Wheel Becomes It! of a British literary celebrity who is not an important writer, is no great personality, and certainly is no cause for celebration of the human species. G.F.H. Shadbold, a lifelong poseur and literary manque, lives, for the most part, in fear of discovery.
A friend, Cedric Winterwade, whom Shadbold evidently seduced in his college days, writes a novel almost as insignificant and badly written as Shadbold's own literary output. As time passes, however, and the "friend" is killed in the army, Winterwade's novel begins to be rediscovered while Shadbold's work remains ignored. The discovery that Winterwade has penned a journal sets the stage for a hilarious series of events, ending in Shadbold's justifiable downfall from grace as he discovers that his friend has revealed not only Shadbold's sexual indiscretions, but has described his own affair with a woman with whom Shadbold had been in love. Powell pokes fun at the writing community, academic life, and a whole generation of memoir-toting literati.