The Nash and Douglas families, discreetly intermarried, were the arbiters of society in Nashborough. They lived in town houses and plantation mansions. They had cotton crops, they owned banks and they ran the local politics. They had recovered themselves from the disasters and poverty of the Civil War the previous century, and when the novel opens at the marriage of the youngest Douglas daughter, it looks as if this world would never end. But financial, political and social events intervened. Even the South did not remain immune from the effects of the banking collapse of the 1920s, and certainly not from the growth of racial tensions. Some of the family ran away to Chicago or Paris; some married outside the golden circle - to a penniless anarchist, and to an Englishwoman. One, the splendid Dartania, even had an affair with the Prince of Wales. But the changes also affected the whole tradition of family. Miss Alice might still hold the party of the year, but many of her descendants had started to reinvent themselves - becoming senators, artists and even a film star. The women no longer organised social events but worked, and one Douglas was even to become the most eminent black preacher in the South. Full of great characters woven in with real people, and rich in the atmosphere of the houses, the society and a way of life, Nashborough is a truly compelling saga. It is a fascinating take on that frequently studied subject: the family.
