"In my mind rose a misty picture of a little girl in a floral dress. As for her face: nothing. I could only hope that she had been pretty. I sat overcome. What a procession of developments in one day! Only that morning I had left Madiun; at midday I was wobbling on a buggy past an ocean of rice fields; tonight, suddenly, I had been renamed by my parents and handed a wife." Thus begins Sastrodarsono's life, returning to his village as a newly- appointed schoolteacher, and by virtue of that position, a member of the "priyayi" - functionary gentry awesomely elevated above the peasantry of his origins. From those most traditional of Javanese institutions - change of name and a virtually imposed marriage-he moves on with his bride to found a line of modernizing generations active across the whole span of recent Indonesian history: the 20th century late-colonial period, Japanese occupation, war of independence and two decades of social disorder ending in the mid-1960s with the rise of Suharto's authoritarian New Order government. The ideal of gentrification threads through this saga, both in the implicit concerns of a variety of characters and in the hopes of wretched villagers for whom the literacy necessary to approach that higher status is largely a forlorn dream.

Masih ingat Para Priyayi, kisah tentang keluarga besar Sastro Darsono dari Wanagalih? Dalam Jalan Menikung ini kisah keluarga Sastro Darsono berlanjut dengan kehidupan Harimurti-Sulistianingsih bersama anak tunggal mereka, Eko, yang belajar di Sunnybrook College, Connecticut, Amerika Serikat. Sukses dalam studi dan ingin kembali ke tanah air, ternyata Eko tersandung oleh masa lalu ayahnya. Harimurti dipecat dari pekerjaannya, anjuran sang ayah ia tetap tinggal di Sunnybrook dan kemudian bekerja