[It] is in Middle Tennessee that Peter Taylor has found a setting for many of his stories. It is Nashville, the capitol of the state, that is often his locus operandi, the hub of his characters' actions. Nashville is often the place psychologically central to his first-person narrators. It functions as their point of reference, the place of established, stable values, the concentration of cultural mores. (p. 37)

Who, then, are Taylor's people—characters—individuals—the blood and flesh of the stories? It has frequently been noted that he writes only about upper middle-class Southerners who are not involved in acts of bloodshed, lust, or violence. Taylor's characters, therefore, put the author in a class apart from most contemporary Southern authors. His characters live in the city, function as a family unit in spite of a great many urban tensions, and display good manners at home and in the...