'O'Hara is the only American writer to whom America presents itself as a social scene in the way it once presented itself to Henry James, or France to Proust' The New York Times

When the beautiful, imperious and moneyed Grace Caldwell Tate wants something she goes after it, men included. Her affair scandalises Pennsylvania's elite and she must face the costs to her marriage and the man she really loves.

A bestseller on publication in 1949, A Rage to Live is a candid tale of idealists and libertines, tradesmen and crusaders, men of violence and goodwill, and women of fierce strength and tenderness.