Alice had come halfway across the world to find that, yet again, she was considered wanting. Well, she thought, if that was what everyone thought, she might as well live up to it.’ england, late 1930s, and alice wright – restless, stifled – make an impulsive decision to marry wealthy american bennett van cleve and leave her home and family behind. But stuffy, disapproving baileyville, kentucky, where her husband favours work over his wife and is dominated by his overbearing father, is not the adventure – or the escape – that she hoped for.