Flappers & Fiction

At their new American country house, the Kernevals prepare for a house party of society guests including a celebrated beauty, a civil service reformer, and various other characters from their Philadelphia social circle. When Kerneval unexpectedly invites his old college friend Jim Wrexford to join the gathering, his wife Nancy is dismayed by the social disruption this stranger might cause among their carefully planned party. The story opens with the couple at breakfast, discussing their guests and the delicate social arrangements, while autumn settles over the countryside around their charming but impermanent new home.