The Flapper Wife

On the eve of her wedding, Gloria Gordon imagines marriage as escape: from work, from duty, from the hard, ordinary life she has watched her mother and grandmother endure. Beautiful, vain, and hungry for luxury, she wants to be adored, not burdened, and she carries that dream into a marriage with Dick, who loves her with patient devotion. But the glittering honeymoon, the costly fur coat, and the elegant house soon give way to quarrels over money, housework, and the role Gloria refuses to accept. When domestic life threatens to trap her, Gloria's tempers, self-dramatization, and dependence on comfort are laid bare, even as Dick tries to steady her. A temporary cook eases the tension, but not the deeper conflict between romance and reality, vanity and responsibility. Then an old flame, Stanley Wayburn, reopens the past, forcing Gloria into a bitter reckoning with desire, betrayal, and the price of her choices. As illness, childbirth, and the example of other women press upon her, she begins to glimpse the emotional and moral costs of the life she has pursued. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.