The Glimpses of the Moon

Susan Branch, a perpetual drifter of the social elite, subsists on the generosity of affluent acquaintances who furnish her with couture and fleeting pleasures. Her heart, however, is tethered to the beleaguered novelist Nick Lansing, whose prose teeters on the brink of obscurity. The trio’s equilibrium destabilises when Ursula Gillow, Susan’s most powerful benefactor, sets her sights on Nick, and Ellie Vanderlyn, a calculating matriarch, persuades Susan to wed the writer for a contrived year of happiness. The nuptial ceremony, lavish yet hollow, is swiftly undone as the couple squanders the extravagant gifts, plunging them into a vortex of debt and desperation. Their marriage unravels amidst the Vanderlyns’ domestic intrigues, while Ursula’s relentless pursuit intensifies, turning affection into possession. A tenacious attorney, overseeing the Lansings’ impending divorce, orchestrates a reluctant reconciliation, prompting Nick to finally sell his manuscript and secure a fragile redemption. The narrative weaves themes of patronage, performative love, and the commodification of art, set against a backdrop of opulent decadence and moral ambiguity.