Joan and Co

The Story

The narrative begins in the gilded circles of New York, where Joan Fairburne’s life is defined by social obligations, dance cards, and a lingering sense of boredom. Her constant companion, Dicky Burnett, a wealthy but aimless young man, attempts to court her, yet his presence only heightens her restlessness. Joan observes her own life as if it were a performance in which she has no genuine interest, waiting for something, or someone, to force her to engage with the world in a more meaningful way.

The catalyst for change arrives in the form of Mark Devons, a man from a vastly different social stratum. After an accident in which Joan’s automobile strikes him, she brings him into her home to recover. Devons is an intense, driven inventor who has been living on the brink of poverty while laboring over chemical formulas. Joan is captivated by his raw ambition and his refusal to be "tagged and catalogued" by his surroundings. She sees in him the "fighting things" she longs for—the grit and struggle of a person whose story is still being written.

Devons begins to rise, fueled by Joan’s encouragement and financial backing. He establishes a small laboratory, and eventually, the Devons Manufacturing Company, turning his experiments into a viable business. Joan acts as his silent partner, finding a new, vital rhythm in a life that finally includes work and purpose. Meanwhile, Dicky Burnett, sensing his own inadequacy, begins to mimic the aggressive, high-risk financial behavior of his father’s associates. While Devons is building something tangible, the elder Burnett is engaged in reckless margin trading, a dangerous game that leads to the family’s sudden financial ruin.

As Devons’s business expands, he takes over the very plant that formerly belonged to the Burnetts. The shift in power is absolute: the once-wealthy Dicky is forced to work in the factory among the laborers, covered in the "black, sticky stuff" of production. When Joan visits the plant, she finds the fallen Dicky there, and the encounter reveals the depth of his transformation. Devons, feeling entitled by his newfound success, views Joan as a conquest and his ticket to a higher social station, eventually demanding that she acknowledge their partnership on his terms. Joan, however, realizes that the man she once admired for his drive has become bitter and self-absorbed.

In the final movement, Joan turns away from the cold ambition of Devons, whose success has hardened him, and reconciles with Dicky. Freed from the weight of his father’s wealth and the stifling expectations of his former life, Dicky emerges as a man who can find pride in his own work. The book concludes with the couple finding a quiet, genuine happiness, with Joan successfully persuading their family to allow them to build their future on their own merits rather than through inherited fortune.

The People

• Joan Fairburne: A society debutante seeking escape from the emptiness of her privileged life. She uses her influence and resources to fuel Devons’s startup, eventually learning to distinguish between the superficial "fighting" of the business world and the quiet, authentic life she truly desires.
• Mark Devons: A brilliant, impoverished inventor who is initially driven by a need to prove his worth. His obsession with success allows him to rise from an attic room to the head of a company, but the process consumes his empathy, turning him into a man who confuses love and partnership with possession.
• Dicky Burnett: A young socialite who begins as a bored, aimless follower of convention. After his father’s financial collapse forces him into manual labor, he loses his arrogance and finds a sense of self-respect and maturity that makes him a suitable partner for Joan.
• Burnett Senior: A wealthy businessman whose descent into ruinous speculation serves as a mirror for the fragility of his son’s former world. By the end, he is humbled and finally willing to support his son’s choice of an authentic life over the preservation of an empty fortune.

In Its Own Voice

While Joan tries to find meaning in the monotony of her social obligations, she finds the people surrounding her entirely predictable.

“He was not merely some one like Dicky Burnett, tagged and catalogued, circumscribed by his surroundings, and acting his allotted part in a play.”

As Devons recovers from his accident and prepares to re-enter his competitive world, he reflects on the transformative nature of his new professional life.

“He thought he had been working hard through all those long years, but it was child’s play to what he felt himself capable of now.”

Even as the story moves toward its conclusion, Joan maintains a keen sense of what is necessary to preserve the sincerity of her new life with Dicky.

“You old dear, don’t you go and spoil it all; please don’t let him have that money; I want him just as he is.”

What It's Really About

At its core, the book is a study of the interplay between inherited status and earned identity. It asks whether a person can ever be truly free if they are defined entirely by the social expectations of their class. Joan Fairburne is the embodiment of this question; she is surrounded by the trappings of wealth but finds them to be a form of imprisonment. The "fighting things" she craves represent a desire for agency in a world where everything—from one's marriage prospects to one's career—is often pre-arranged by lineage and bank balance.

The book posits that true growth is often painful and requires the stripping away of artificial comforts. This is most clearly illustrated in the contrasting arcs of Devons and Dicky. Devons represents the "new man" of the early twentieth century—the meritocratic striver who believes that business success is the ultimate arbiter of human value. However, the author presents a critique of this mindset; as Devons succeeds, he loses his humanity, becoming a mirror image of the cold, exploitative figures he once despised. He views his factory as a "palace" and treats the people around him as tools, failing to realize that his pursuit of power has left him emotionally bankrupt.

Conversely, Dicky represents the possibility of redemption through loss. By falling from the heights of New York society into the grit of the factory floor, he is given the chance to "begin fresh every day." The author argues that wealth acts as a barrier to self-knowledge, effectively insulating the individual from the reality of the world. When that barrier is removed, the characters are forced to define themselves by their labor and their choices rather than their names.

Ultimately, the book argues that money is a secondary concern to the integrity of one’s character. The resolution—where the father is forbidden from "saving" his son with money—serves as the final argument. Joan understands that the value of Dicky’s new life depends entirely on his ability to sustain it himself. By refusing the financial safety net, she protects the reality of the life they have chosen, affirming that their partnership is built on shared human connection rather than the transactional nature of their former social world.

Why Read It Today

This story will appeal to readers who enjoy character-driven social dramas with a strong sense of place. It captures the specific, restless energy of early twentieth-century New York, where the rigidity of old-money traditions began to clash with the raw, chaotic ambition of the industrial age. The prose is warm and observant, often focusing on the internal shifts of its characters as they navigate these transitions.

Modern readers might notice the period-specific attitudes regarding social class and gender roles, which are presented with the earnestness of the 1919 publication date. The dialogue occasionally reflects the brisk, sometimes clipped, manner of the era’s socialites, and the pacing is deliberate, favoring scenes of quiet reflection over rapid-fire action. It is a book that demands patience, as the characters’ internal growth happens slowly, mirroring the way one might finally come to understand one’s own place in the world.

What remains with the reader is the poignant shift in power dynamics. Seeing a character like Dicky move from the vanity of a society dance to the honest exhaustion of a factory worker is genuinely moving, and it provides a sharp contrast to the cold, climbing ambition of Devons. If you enjoy stories that explore how we define success—and how we decide what we are willing to sacrifice to achieve it—you will find this to be a thoughtful, grounded meditation on the process of becoming oneself. It is not a tale of effortless success, but rather a story about the messy, often difficult work of leaving behind a life that no longer fits, in exchange for one that is, at last, truly your own.