181:, Clara eagerly accepts the offer and soon becomes a household name as a trendy journalist. During World War II, while Hoyt is stationed in London and Clara remains in New York, both spouses are unfaithful to each other. On her husband's return, however, Clara is faced with the double standards of morality which exempt the man from any consequences of his infidelity while ascribing to the woman the role of sinner, of the "war wife who cheats on her fighting husband" or, as Trevor puts it, of the "cool bitch". Subsequently, and much to her mother's dismay, Clara divorces her husband, a generous divorce settlement ensuring that she does not quite have to "face the chilling prospect of depending on her own talents to support herself".
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201:, voicing what he really thinks on the matter and thus forfeiting all his chances of ever becoming a politician. It is with considerable difficulty that Clara answers Tyler's question whether she loves him—she is aware of the fact that her rather forced "Of course, I love you" is actually a lie. At this point in her life she very strongly questions her ability to love at all.
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Born in New York in 1917, attractive
Clarabel (Longcope) Hoyt, the heroine of the book, is encouraged by her ambitious mother to marry "a great man," a man able and willing to make a success of his life. She succeeds in persuading her daughter to end her relationship with a young teacher with a
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Nevertheless, Clara marries Eric Tyler, but the ailing tycoon suffers two strokes and dies. Clara is now faced with a lengthy lawsuit brought on by Tony Tyler, Eric's son by his first wife, who feels cheated out of the family money. Determined to fight to the end rather than compromise, Clara
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by exposing her predecessor's alcoholism and eventually starts an affair with Eric Tyler, the owner of the magazine. At the same time she gently but firmly turns Tyler
Publications into an empire aligned with the
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said " transcends himself with an astute and witty novel about a woman who disdains the old values of money and class in favor of a feminine meritocracy in the world of business."
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families instead. Eventually succumbing to her mother's wishes, Clara, still a virgin, marries Trevor Hoyt, a banker, and in due course their daughter Sandra is born.
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first published in 2000 about a career woman of the first half of the 20th century. The title is a quotation from
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called the book "nother fine chapter in
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justifies, and also disguises, her luxurious lifestyle by continuing her late husband's
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causes so that her public image turns into that of an "angel of beneficience".
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In the final scene of the novel, set in 1961, Clara is on the phone with
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216:Clara also likes to see herself as a
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299:Plum Bun: A Novel Without a Moral
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344:. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
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252:Her Infinite Variety
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424:. Publishers Weekly
311:The Pursuit of Love
258:Joseph Hergesheimer
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325:References
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