One hot night last spring, after waiting fruitlessly for a call from my then lover, with whom I had quarrelled the same afternoon, and finding one of my black moods on me, I flung out of my lonely room on the ninth floor (unlucky number) in a hotel in lower Fifth Avenue and rushed into the streets of the Village, feeling bad.

Letty Fox is hunting for a husband. Her picaresque adventures are brilliantly described in this imaginative portrayal of a woman who might have been independent, but chose otherwise.