A Lady with a Past. A sensitive but immensely practical boy. A staid Midwestern town at the turn of the century. Carl Van Vechten's The Tattooed Countess hit Midwestern society where it hurt most鈥攊n its respectable foundations鈥攚hen it appeared in 1924.
The Countess Nattatorrini, 苍茅别 Ella Poore, has returned home to 海角乱伦社区after twenty tempestuous years on the Continent. Time has stood still in Maple Valley鈥攁 Cedar Rapids look-alike whose residents are seen as little more than animated rocking chairs who chew gum, gossip on their front porches, enjoy euchre parties and buckwheat griddle cakes, and brag endlessly of the new waterworks.
Into this complacent town bursts the Countess, a full-blown, impulsive widow who dares to dye her hair, smokes cigarettes in public, wears her gowns cut low and her jewels in layers, and admits that after her lips are made up she can say things she could never have said before. Needless to say, the good folks of Maple Valley are awestruck鈥攂ut not struck silent鈥攂y this exotic vision.
Just as the Countess finds herself bored beyond endurance, she meets the one boy in Maple Valley who deserves a good education.
Van Vechten's novel is clever, caustic, but loving in its portrait of the 海角乱伦社区of the 1890s. Truthfully subtitled "a romantic novel with a happy ending," it should be hugely enjoyed by today's Iowans and their neighbors.
