Every minute of Pauline Manafort’s day is planned out in advance, ensuring maximum efficiency. Never mind that some of her activities may contradict one another, what matters is she avoids discomfort, particularly the discomfort of having nothing to do. In this Jazz Age satire, Wharton pokes fun at everything from spiritual gurus to Hollywood as Pauline’s family increasingly descends into chaos in large part due to the order she tries to impose on her life.
Twilight Sleep gets its name from a then new way of painless childbirth. Wharton’s concern that modern technology encouraged people to avoid any sort of pain helped inspire Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.
Published in May 1927