This book is viciously hilarious in a way that suggests it is absolutely personal. Apparently, it is, written specifically as satire on a woman who was perceived as having (as the patriarchy likes to say) slept her way to the top.
In this book, the woman comes to a bad end, but Wikipedia tells me the actual woman never paid her dues. This makes sense: some of us have to pay so many dues it makes sense that some others must be skipping out.
Mostly this book is notable for the hilarious descriptions. On a busty woman’s blouse:
. . the yellow print now gracing her form, strained in a taut line across her back and then across her front so that bosoms popped out behind and before, above and below as if there were dozens of them, all crying for freedom
Or on this guy, who almost went bankrupt:
It was this snarling pack of debt which speeded (him) into the first World War and unquestionably caused him to become quite a military hero. He distinguished himself at Belleau Wood, and in Chateau-Thierry he went over the top as if he were chased by six process servers
Or an old man, with
surprisingly red hair that sprouted gaily from his ears
I ordered another book by Powell right after I finished this one.