The Coast of Folly*
Scandal in the Homes of the Rich The Story. Joyce Gathway was not in any sense mid-Victorian.
Nevertheless, it came as a distinct surprise to her to learn from the papers that she was to be named as co-respondent when Larry Fay was sued for divorce. Larry, a young fellow who had hoped for a quiet, homy home, soon found that not only was he not to have that, but that he had even lost the highly-spiced wife who could have given it to him and wouldn't.
Things are complicated by the fact that Joyce's millionaire grandfather—old Jupiter Gathway—has picked this embarrassing moment for his last illness. He refrains from decease long enough to see the article about the divorce and to offer Joyce a difficult choice: either she must find God or lose her inheritance.
Not knowing just what to do, the girl betakes herself abroad to her mother. The maneuver proves to be illadvised. Her mother is in no sense qualified to give moral aid and comfort. She is magnificently free from morality. While Joyce was still a child, the mother had run away from her husband; and she has not neglected to keep his place continually, if varyingly, filled by a succession of masculine intimacies. Joyce, inexplicably stimulated, returns to fight the world—particularly that part of it comprising the supposed friends who had led her down the steep path to indiscretion.
Thereafter things move briskly, everything getting increasingly black for Joyce. She is not without friends —Nannie, the fat old nurse of her childhood, who sticks by her through the dark days; Mr. Reel, fat lawyer who would give anything he ever owned to help her, and, in fact, does give her any amount of good advice, which she cheerfully disregards—to her own partial undoing. Above all, there is the invaluable Hal Utrecht, Mrs. Larry Fay's counsel, who is the prime mover in the happy ending.
There has very rarely been a happier ending.' Joyce, in the last chapter, is in a perfect ecstacy. She never does succeed in finding God, but God finds her. Her grandfather understands and forgives. His insulting will cutting her oft is destroyed. The incomparable Lawyer Utrecht, the injustice of the case finally made clear to him, throws it over. He does more. He goes to the extent of marrying Joyce, and, as the last page turns, we are left with the agreeable anticipation of years of idyllic happiness.
The Significance. There is no particular reason why The Coast of Folly should not be one of the very best of best sellers. It has all the appeal of a cinema thriller and one or two other things besides. The long arm of coincidence sweeps the entire landscape.
Moreover, there is an undercurrent of what is very evidently serious thought on Mr. Dawson's part. The dilemma of the young woman, innocently led into the traps of modern Society, is clearly preying on his mind. The world is a dangerous place for a girl, he reflects. The things that happened to Joyce might happen to almost anyone.