The Valiants of Virginia

1912. The Valiant Corporation has collapsed, and John Valiant, gentleman of leisure, wearer of spotless Panama hats and pearl-gray gaiters, stands frozen on a claret-colored rug as his entire world evaporates in a single word: Failed. His father's empire, built over decades, has crumbled overnight, and John must now confront the uncomfortable truth that his charmed existence was always a house of cards. He inherits Damory Court, the family's ancestral estate in Virginia, and must decide whether he is the man his name demands or merely the privileged boy who never learned to struggle. Rives writes with sharp social observation about the American elite on the eve of the Great War, men and women whose fortunes rest on foundations they never questioned until those foundations gave way. This is a novel about falling, but more importantly, about what a man does when he has nothing left to fall back on but his name.