This is Booth Tarkington's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Alice Adams. Tarkington was, in his day, one of the most popular American novelists, with The Two Vanrevels and Mary's Neck appearing on the annual best-seller lists nine times. His works included The Gentleman from Indiana, Monsieur Beaucaire, The Two Vanrevels, Penrod, The Turmoil, Seventeen, The Magnificent Ambersons, Alice Adams, Gentle Julia, The Midlander, The Plutocrat, Claire Ambler, Penrod Jashber, Mirthful Haven, Mary's Neck, and Presenting Lily Mars. The story is set in a lower-middle-class household in an unnamed town in the Midwest shortly after World War I.