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."