At the age of ninety-three, Elizabeth Spencer is once again making news in the literary world. A master of the short story form, Spencer was awarded the 2013 Rea Prize for Short Fiction, and her latest collection Starting Over was hailed as "a work of genius" (New York Times Book Review). While Spencer is a five-time O. Henry Award winner, her novels also showcase her uncanny ability to depict how "twisted, chafing, inescapable, and life-supporting" (Alice Munro) the ties that bind families and marriages are. Nowhere are her skills more evident than in No Place for an Angel, a Jamesian portrait of Cold War America that follows the fracturing marriage of Catherine and Jerry Sasser, a Texas heiress and a ruthless political fixer. From the oil fields of Texas to Rome and New York, Spencer's novel follows the Sassers and their friends and traces the decline of the fortunate and the search for redemption.