Few great writers produced less than Jane Bowles: one novel, one play and a dozen short stories. Yet hers is one of the most original, unique voices in twentieth century American literature. A novelist with an essentially tragic view, as Truman Capote concludes in his memoir, but also 'a very funny writer ... with at [her] heart the subtlest comprehension of eccentricity and human apartness.'

Here, then, is a novel unlike any other. A tale of two extraordinary heroines - Christina Goering, a wealthy spinster in pursuit of sainthood, and Frieda Copperfield, who finds a home from home in a Panama brothel. And a book whose lesbian themes were startling on its original publication in 1943.