The Late George Apley

Wealthy Bostonian John Apley engages a somewhat pompous literary man to produce a truthful book about his recently deceased father, George.

This writer, named Willing, specializes in flowery, sanitized tributes to local luminaries, and he is disturbed by the young man's request for frankness, especially since George Apley was his good friend, but he reluctantly agrees.

He frequently interjects his own comments, declaring his admiration for Apley the public-spirited citizen and bemoaning the disclosure of "scandalous" information about the man and his family.

Willing, a comic character in his own right, longs for the old days in Boston, when subjects such as love affairs, alcoholism, mental illness and crime were kept out of the papers if they involved prominent people, and respectability was more important than personal happiness.

Apley is revealed as a man who was deeply conflicted about his status among Boston's elite, sometimes feeling imprisoned in his privileged world, but sometimes passionately defending the old order.