A Lost Lady

Marian Forrester lives as the charming centerpiece of Sweet Water, Nebraska, where her husband, Captain Daniel Forrester, maintains a grand railroader’s estate. Niel Herbert, a local youth, idolizes Marian as the embodiment of grace and refined Victorian femininity. However, the decline of the pioneer era and the Captain’s failing health expose the fragility of their social standing. Niel watches his ideal crumble as Marian uses infidelity and moral compromise to survive the rise of the unscrupulous nouveau riche, represented by the predatory Ivy Peters.

This novel serves historians and lovers of regionalist fiction who want to observe the transition from nineteenth-century idealism to the unsentimental pragmatism of modern capitalism. Readers gain a unsentimental look at how the Western frontier shifted from a place of grand ambition to one of exploitation. The narrative provides a psychological study of disillusioned youth and the survival instincts required of women in a rigid class structure undergoing rapid economic decay.