She Walks in Beauty

By Dawn Powell

A coming-of-age story of two sisters living in their grandmother's boarding house in a small Ohio town just before the first world war and the characters who filter in an out of the house and their lives.

For teenager Linda Shirley, her residence in a family boarding house is a fact to be hidden, ignored, and, eventually, escaped. She aims for a better life and tries desperately to win the approval of the town's elite, particularly the popular Courtenay Stall, over whom she pines. Her younger sister, Dorrie, is a dreamer who not only tolerates but often delights in the colorful guests of the house, from the reluctantly retired theater troupers to the glamorous young woman of ill-repute, the bed-bound intellectual in the attic to the circus snake charmer who keeps her "babies" in ill-secured boxes under her bed.

For Dawn Powell, "satire is people as they are; romanticism, people as they would like to be; realism, people as they seem with their insides left out." She Walks in Beauty is a satire in the most insightful sense, showing the specific clarity and cloudiness of two very different sisters' worldviews. This Belt Revivals edition includes a new introduction by critic Ilana Masad.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1953368956
• ISBN13: 9781953368959
• Release Date: June 2025
• Publisher: Belt Publishing
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.63 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.4" x 8.4"