1919. Ellen West commands Fifth Avenue from the editorial throne of a radical feminist journal. Her manifesto against marriage has made her infamous, her intellect legendary. She has declared war on the old order, vowing that no man will own her, no institution will contain her. Then three men arrive. Randolph Field offers steadfast love. Edwin Brown proposes a lavish free alliance, then marriage. But it's Ralph Manning, young, earnest, the nephew of Ellen's friend, whose earnest ambition and fresh sincerity unravel her certainties. On a rooftop beneath starlight, he proposes with his mother's earrings fashioned into a ring, and Ellen faces an impossible question: can she love freely without surrendering herself? Dixon constructs a bracing intellectual duel between feminist principle and romantic desire, each character a different answer to what the New Woman truly wants, and whether she can want at all.
