She Walks in Beauty

A coming-of-age story of two sisters living in their grandmother's boarding house in a small Ohio town just before the first world war and the characters who filter in and out of the house and their lives. For teenager Linda Shirley, her residence in a family boarding house is a fact to be hidden, ignored, and, eventually, escaped. She aims for a better life and tries desperately to win the approval of the town's elite, particularly the popular Courtenay Stall, over whom she pines. Her younger sister, Dorrie, is a dreamer who not only tolerates but often delights in the colorful guests of the house, from the reluctantly retired theater troupers to the glamorous young woman of ill-repute, the bed-bound intellectual in the attic to the circus snake charmer who keeps her "babies" in ill-secured boxes under her bed. Dawn Powell once said, "satire is people as they are; romanticism, people as they would like to be; realism, people as they seem with their insides left out." She Walks in Beauty is a satire in the most insightful sense, showing the specific clarity and cloudiness of two very different sisters' worldviews. This Belt Revivals edition includes a new introduction by critic Ilana Masad.

• | Author: Dawn Powell
• | Publisher: Belt Publishing
• | Publication Date: Jun 17, 2025
• | Number of Pages: 00224 pages
• | Binding: Paperback or Softback
• | ISBN-10: 1953368956
• | ISBN-13: 9781953368959