Dawn Powell's She Walks in Beauty recounts the adolescence of Dorrie and Linda, two sisters who live in a railroad station boarding house owned by their Aunt Jule in a small Ohio town. The story's cast of characters includes gently venal theater actors, the town gossip, a penurious piano teacher, eccentric alcoholics, not quite respectable women, philosophical "old man Wickley," and town golden boy Courtenay Stall, among others. A tale of class society,...