First published 2002
In Nashville drawing rooms and Memphis parlors, the veneer of Southern gentility begins to crack. A businessman discovers his wife's affair while maintaining his social obligations. A young man watches his family's reputation crumble over a single indiscretion. An elderly woman confronts the violence that shaped her marriage decades earlier. Taylor writes four prose stories and four verse narratives that strip away the mannered politeness of Tennessee's upper class. His characters navigate sexual betrayals, family scandals, and the weight of social expectations. When custom and restraint finally break down, passion erupts with devastating consequences. These men and women find themselves caught between the world they inherited and the desires they can no longer suppress. The stories reveal how quickly respectability can dissolve when confronted with human nature's messier truths.
Genres: short-stories, literary-fiction, american-fiction, 20th-century, family-drama
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: character-study, social-commentary
Setting: Nashville, Memphis, Tennessee
Period: 20th-century
216 pages · Paperback · Louisiana State Univ Pr
Content warnings: sexual-content