Early Autumn

Early Autumn the tale of the struggle between lie and death in a New England family, old and decayed, but of a name and tradition once distinguished in the history of America. In it Olivia Pentland, thirty-eight, beautiful, an "outsider," and hungry for life beyond the borders of the "enchanted" Pentland family, battles to save herself from the attraction of a fascinating and unscrupulous Irish politician and to save her daughter from the light that touches everything in the Pentland family.

It is the story of a people who live in the past, cherishing tradition and property and respectability above all else in the world, whose very characters and motives are determined by men and women have been dead for more than half a century. "The roots of life at Pentland," says Olivia, "go down, down into the past. There are no new branches, no young, vigorous shoots."