Book description
A rich tale centred around the lives of Marjorie Fairfield, a beautiful
and penniless young woman who is the mistress of a wealthy business man;
and the symbolically named Ransom Heritage, one of the many young men
who were cast adrift after the First World War ended and who has been
abruptly deprived of a sense of purpose, ambition and hope. Around these
young people and their circle whirls the carefree society of fashionable
post-war London - a raucous, glamorous and perhaps slightly shrill world
of cocktails and nightclubs, tea dances and illicit tte--ttes. Waugh
depicts a frenetic society where all too many people are 'kept' in some
way - financially, by a well-off lover, inherited capital, an unwanted
husband; or more figuratively, by a reputation, a title - a
relationship, even. A rich tale centred around the lives of Marjorie
Fairfield, a beautiful and penniless young woman who is the mistress of
a wealthy business man; and the symbolically named Ransom Heritage, one
of the many young men who were cast adrift after the First World War
ended and who has been abruptly deprived of a sense of purpose, ambition
and hope. Around these young people and their circle whirls the carefree
society of fashionable post-war London - a raucous, glamorous and
perhaps slightly shrill world of cocktails and nightclubs, tea dances
and illicit tte--ttes. Waugh depicts a frenetic society where all too
many people are 'kept' in some way - financially, by a well-off lover,
inherited capital, an unwanted husband; or more figuratively, by a
reputation, a title - a relationship, even.
