In the spring of 1893 Strindberg had just published "A Fool's Confession," D'Annunzio was employing all the multicolored glory of his style to prove "The Triumph of Death"; Hardy was somberly mixing on his palette the twilight grays and blacks and mourning purples of "Jude the Obscure"; Nordau, gnashing his teeth, was bellowing "Decadent" at his contemporaries who smirked a complacent acceptance of the epithet ... and, all unconscious of the futility and sordidness of the world, Neale Crittenden swaggered along Central Avenue, brandishing his shinny stick.

One day in 1920 Marise watches her youngest child depart for his first day of school and feels redundant. Absorbed in her new role as wife and mother she has not been aware of the slow ebbing of her spirit, nor the way in which her marriage, though comfortable and happy, has lost its passion. As the year progresses Marise continues as the pivot of the household, drawing new neighbours into the family circle and the Vermont community. Doing so, she reassesses her marriage and the values on which it is based, each day underlined by the questions she now asks herself - and sharpened by her increasing attraction to another man. First published in 1919 this intuitive novel explores the emotional turmoil one woman faces as she struggles to resurrect her own identity.