American writer Edith Wharton is known for her novels of manners set in old New York; yet much of her adult life was spent in France. She lived in Paris throughout World War I and was heavily involved in refugee work. She was a hugely successful writer and the first woman ever to win the Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Age of Innocence. In this 1918 novella, we are introduced to the story of 15-year-old Troy Belknap who is from a wealthy family in New York but yearns to serve in the area of France along the Marne River where critical World War I battles took place, known as The Marne. Wharton takes the reader on a dizzying journey down the line between Troys rose-colored, heroic ambitions, the grim realities of the war, and the often hollow and ugly attitudes of Americans at home.