Other Things Being Equal

The novel follows Ruth Levice, a young woman in a well-to-do San Francisco household shaped by an unusual parental arrangement in which her father directs her upbringing while her mother seeks society. Louis Arnold, a longtime family companion recently returned from abroad, resumes duties as business confidant and social escort, and an aunt’s illness brings stricter household routines. Through witty, intimate conversations and social episodes the narrative explores tensions between private feeling and public appearance, questions of parental authority and social convention, and contrasting attitudes toward love, decorum, and the roles expected of men and women.