Dawn Powell turns her attention to those certain rare souls who have the secret of finding their lives glamorous and themselves magnificent under the most humble conditions. Connie Benjamin, the village shoemaker's wife, was raised in a wealthy household and had pretensions toward an operatic career. Blaine Decker, the new high school music teacher, is a homosexual in a closeted era who once spent time abroad studying piano. The two are drawn together into a powerful friendship of dependence, each sustaining the other in a conviction of superiority and translating the surface monotony of their lives into a drama richer than reality.

Dawn Powell turns her attention to those certain rare souls who have the secret of finding their lives glamorous and themselves magnificent under the most humble conditions. Connie Benjamin, the village shoemaker's wife, was raised in a wealthy household and had pretensions toward an operatic career. Blaine Decker, the new high school music teacher, is a homosexual in a closeted era who once spent time abroad studying piano. The two are drawn together into a powerful friendship of dependence, each sustaining the other in a conviction of superiority and translating the surface monotony of their lives into a drama richer than reality.