This novel about the effects of America's repressive moral climate was controversial in its day, and its availability to the public was delayed 12 years because of the "immorality" in Dreiser's sordid, realistic portrayal of the downfall of an innocent young woman who leaves her country town for the big city.

Olympia Crawford Rubinstein manages her family with grace and humor. With twin daughters finishing high school, a son at Dartmouth, and a kindergartener from her second marriage, there seems to be nothing she can't handle. That is, until she opens an invitation for her daughters to attend a coming-out ball in New York. Then chaos erupts. Olympia's on the verge of surrender until a series of choices and changes of heart, family, and friends turns a...