William Goyen's second novel finds Marietta McGee-Chavez and her friends and acquaintances populate a world that is as much imagination as it is reality. And within it, they experience dreams and reality, sexual desire and loneliness, triumph and defeat.

Subtitles, A Romance, In a Farther Country is an intense performance. Set in a Spanish arts factory in New York City, the novel develops through Marietta's mixed ancestry (Spanish and Texan). A cast of characters visit and move in to her Spain and by telling each other what they've never told others before, each finds the truths of themselves.