A realistic drama describing the struggles of being individualistic in a conformist society. The setting is suburban Philadelphia's Main Line, pre-World War II and subsequent years. It tells the life of Brenda Marr, a Main Line debutante who kicks the stuffy social scene for the theatre as a singing showgirl in a Broadway musical. Her maverick nature leads her into various romantic adventures, the New York nightlife and literary world, of entanglement with a literary agent and of her marriage to a dashing, hard drinking, abusive Naval test pilot...all against the wishes of her over- possessive mother. Brenda yearns for fulfillment as she seeks to find her own place in the world.