The Land of Jazz

In a world where the Charleston ricochets through marble corridors and sanity itself pirouettes on a saxophone squeal, two betrothed women—Nina, draped in the crisp epaulettes of her French artillery captain, and Nancy, cloaked in the starched philanthropy of her asylum-running fiancé—find their friendship pressure-cooked by one combustible kiss. That kiss, planted by the captain’s ‘heavenly’ lips onto Nancy’s startled mouth, detonates an engagement and catapults Nina into an audacious charade: she feigns delirium, surrenders her liberty, and signs herself into the doctor’s island madhouse. Behind iron gates painted the color of bruised midnight, she trades taffeta for straightjacket chic, conga-lines with loons, and discovers that lunacy is merely a jazz solo played on the instrument of identity. When Nancy’s rescue posse finally breaches the ward, the music has already swapped partners—Nina and the doctor are shimmying down the aisle, leaving propriety and promise rings to gather dust in the broom closet of propriety.