Intimate Strangers

A stranded lawyer and a rebellious young woman clash in this sparkling 1922 comedy of manners that drips with period charm and razor-sharp wit. William Ames finds himself marooned at a rural railway station during a hurricane, hungry and humiliated, until he's rescued by Isabel Stuart, a young woman bold enough to wear trousers and bold enough to challenge every assumption he holds about proper young ladies. Ames had previously declared his contempt for "young women in breeches," never imagining he'd owe his survival to one. What follows is a delicious siege: Isabel maneuvers the stuffy lawyer into ever-more compromising positions, each encounter chipping away at his dignified exterior until he must confront the absurdity of his own prejudices. Tarkington, who won the Pulitzer Prize twice, crafts a marvelously light touch out of questions that cut deep: What does it mean to be respectable? Who gets to define proper behavior? And can two complete strangers become something more through sheer stubbornness? The comedy zings with period-specific detail and social commentary that still feels relevant a century later.