A Well-Behaved Woman

Gilded Age New York glitters on the surface and cuts beneath it. Therese Anne Fowler's novel follows Alva Smith, who transforms herself from genteel poverty into one of the most formidable women of nineteenth-century American society by marrying into the newly wealthy Vanderbilt dynasty. The story traces her relentless campaign for social legitimacy, from staging the most celebrated costume ball of the era to co-founding the Metropolitan Opera House, all while navigating a marriage that grows increasingly precarious and a social order designed to keep ambitious women in their place.

Barrie Kreinik brings a measured, composed quality to the narration that suits Alva's carefully controlled public persona, while allowing the private frustrations and defiances to register just beneath the surface. At just over fourteen hours, the pacing holds throughout, and the period detail translates naturally into audio, making Fowler's portrait of a woman who refused the limits placed on her feel both intimate and expansive.