Susan Clegg and a Man in the House

Anne Warner’s third book about Susan Clegg puts her heroine’s convictions to the test. Susan, a spinster who has kept house alone since her father died, agrees to board Elijah Doxey, the young man brought to town to edit a new paper called the Megaphone. Having spent years telling her neighbor exactly what she thinks of married women and the troubles they invite, she now has a man at her table and a printing press in her orbit. Almost all of it arrives as Susan’s talk: long, barely punctuated runs of gossip and judgment aimed at the endlessly patient Mrs. Lathrop, who rarely gets a word in. Warner was among the most widely read American humorists of her day, and the Clegg books show why, since the comedy lives in the voice rather than the plot.