Ceremony of Innocence
It is June 1924 when an inquisitive but skeptical Gemma Danforth graduates from Wellesley College. Despite a loving family, an idyllic New England girlhood, and family summers in the Hamptons, little had assuaged her doubts Now, with college behind them, she and two classmates leave America bound for post war France where they will be immersed in the pulsating culture of European modernism. While in France, she reunites with her Paris based parents, and, in Nice, amidst its creative ferment, she falls in love with Rhys, a well-bred and like-minded British ex-pat journalist. During this year spent along the Cote d’Azur, encounters with Sara and Gerald Murphy, Somerset Maugham, Zelda, Isadora Duncan and others, adds a depth and richness to the ambience of le midi. And so begins the process of displacing her doubts.
She and Rhys return to American where their values collide with antithetical and alien attitudes. It is these experiences that come to challenge long-held beliefs and provide a vivid counterpoint to their recent immersion in the Modernist aesthetic and world view.
Resolved to return to France, Gemma shares a final day in America with Gerald Murphy at his ocean front Hampton estate. As this unhurried afternoon unfolds, it becomes clear that Gemma’s skepticism and doubtfulness have been replaced with a clear-sighted maturity and hardened resolve. The next morning, aboard the Ile de France, Gemma and Rhys sail for France.
Paperback
Paperback Details
- Genre: Fiction
- Sub-genre: Historical / General
- Language: English
- Pages: 140
- Paperback ISBN: 9798993760308
eBook Details
- ISBN-13: 9798993760315
- Publisher: Scrivener Quill
- Publication date: 12/02/2025
- Sold by: Barnes & Noble
- Format: eBook
- Pages: 144
- File size: 1 MB
Ceremony of Innocence, a title drawn from Yeats’ “The Second Coming”, portrays Gemma Danforth’s journey from a skeptical girl to a young woman who has shed her doubts and replaced them with purposeful resolve. Living in Provence with two college classmates, she is immersed in the swirl of creativity and in the aesthetics of the Modernists, made easier by the strength of the post war dollar. Her embrace of modernism is tempered by the love of a well-born British ex-pat journalist and by the traditions of the Hamptons and of the American South. The novel sparkles with modernism’s colors, music, language, and complex personalities. It is this headlong cultural flux that carries Gemma and her circle to its soul satisfying conclusion.
An engaging historical story
Asher presents an engaging historical story from between the World Wars from a compelling perspective.