It is midnight in a Manhattan studio, and a glittering crowd of senators' wives, Boston scholars, and diplomatic stars has gathered to watch a Spanish dancer lift the veil on an ancient art. They are消thrilling to the edge of propriety, these respectable people, intoxicated by their own daring. Among them are Jack Delancy and his wife Edith, whose marriage has begun to fray under the weight of his restless ambition and her nagging sense that charity is not the same as goodness. Warner paints a portrait of the 1890s Gilded Age in full: a world where money is everywhere and meaning is scarce, where bohemian artists and high society orbit each other with mutual fascination and mutual disdain. The Golden House is a novel about the seductions of transgression, how delicious it feels to watch something forbidden, and how quickly that thrill curdles into something more complicated when you have to live with what you've seen. It is sharp, observant, and surprisingly dark for a book that begins at a party.
