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He remembers, as a boy, attending a yearly fete held by some local Protestants, with their shabby-genteel tweeds and cut-glass accents.

Smith writes about yardbird intellects, refugees from good taste and urban ease; her characters are shabby-genteel with the gentility knob turned down pretty low.

Many say they want a new hotel, but that the proposed resort is too big and fancy for Harpers Ferry, whose shabby-genteel charm has changed little in the last 60 years.

But this part of the city is no longer flat, dowdy, shabby-genteel.

“Any time I’m at a book party or reading, and soccer comes up in conversation, I find myself surrounded by young men in shabby-genteel, loosely fitting tweed jackets gushing over the Gunners,” Ms. Schaap said.