The Fierce Dispute is a 1929 novel by Helen Hooven Santmyer. Her second novel, it is set around 1900 in an unnamed town in Ohio (later acknowledged by Santmyer to be Xenia). The novel tells of three generations of women, the wealthy, elderly Margaret Baird, her daughter Hilary, and Hilary's daughter Lucy Anne, aged 9, who live reclusively. Hilary had studied in Italy, supported by her financially successful elder brother Will. There she met and married Paolo, a gifted musician and composer, over her mother's objections. Paolo proved to be a philanderer, and Hilary eventually left him. Margaret has allowed Hilary and Lucy Anne to stay, provided that Lucy Anne be kept ignorant of her father and of music, and has even written her will to provide generous support conditional on continued music