The two teenage daughters of a middle-class English family, brought down in the world by WWI, are going to their first dance. The first half of the book is about the days leading up to the day of the dance. The second half, is about the dance. Olivia, the younger sister, suffers from insecurity, affected by her self-assured older sister Kate.
P.82
"Why go? It was unthinkable. Why suffer so much? Wrenched from one's foundations; neglected, ignored, curiously stared at; partnerless, watching Kate move serenely from partner to partner, pretending not to watch; pretending not to see one's hostess wondering: must she do something about one again -- (really one couldn't go on and on introducing these people); pretending not to care; slipping off to the ladies' cloakroom, fiddling with unnecessary pins and powder, ears strained for the music to stop; wandering forth again to stand by oneself against the wall, hope struggling with despair beneath the mask of smiling indifference... The band strikes up again, the first couple link and glide away. Kate sails past once more... Back to the cloakroom, the pins, the cold scrutiny or (worst) the pitying Small talk of the attendant maid."

After dressing, and discovering that the dress she'd had made for the dance didn't fit just right, she tries to bolster herself. So does Uncle Oswald, when he sees her coming out of the nursery:
P.89
"He said more quietly, but still in his new, human voice: 'you needn't. You're all right. Only I suppose it may mean -- you want what other people tell you you ought to want. Eh? Believe all you're told. You're pretty soft, aren't you? The unselfish one?'
She stammered: 'I don't know. Am I? I didn't think I was.' Her face flamed.
'Never mind,' he said gently, after a pause. 'you'll manage. But you beware of them. If you don't know what's right there's plenty who do. And they'll tell you. From the highest motives -- and all in your interest. Because they know best.' Excitement had crept into his speech. He stopped, his lip twisting; then added, more or less in his usual manner: 'at least it was so in my young days. I suppose it still is.' "

Olivia meets a neurotic boy at the dance who fancies himself a poet:
P.120
" 'How rotten for you. It must be simply terrible to have such -- not to get on with one's parents.'
'Oh, it's just the dear old Oedipus again. We can't get away from it, can we? I suppose one might be analyzed.' He shrugged his shoulders.
He was talking absolute gibberish now. Perhaps he really was a little mad.
'Of course she's had a very unsatisfactory sex life -- for a woman of her temperament. It's made her definitely hysterical. And I'm the only son. So naturally...,' Blink, jerk. 'Of course I'm possessive too -- violently so. I take after her. She's a brilliant creature -- beautiful -- the most Divine companion. I get my creative gifts from her. We have Russian blood.' He passed a languid delicate hand through his fringe.
It must be the Russian blood that made his complexion so sallow and his skull so shallow and flat. His lips were wide and flat, his cheekbones high; and he was a queer shape -- heavy about the shoulders, with long arms and short legs."

An entertaining read, this is about village life in England after the first war. ( )

Olivia turns seventeen and soon afterwards gets to go to a dance in a new dress—but the new dress doesn't look and feel as good as she imagined and the dance is a series of awkward moments and anxious thoughts about being seen not dancing too long when her sister Kate seems to negotiate the evening and life in general much more successfully. This was a quick read that felt almost breathless at times and reminded me of never feeling quite right as a teenager. ( )

A touching ode to that ephemeral period when the last vestiges of childhood naivety is exposed to and extinguished by the complicated multitudes of adulthood. If you've ever been young and self-conscious at a party (and want to recapture that feeling for some reason), this is the book for you.

Period note: I have not frequently encountered in fiction this type of British gentry, the daughter too "well-brought up" a lady to work but also not rich enough to truly be a lady of leisure of the time. This dichotomous dilemma and the country life revolving around the main landed gentry in the area, reminded me of Molly in Wives and Daughters.

Reading note: I tried to read this book about a year ago. That ?Virago edition went straight into the Olivia wake-up scene and my mind fritzed out. However, this penguin edition had an opening chapter that contextualised the setting which drew me in. ( )

It’s the 1920s and Olivia Curtis is a shy seventeen year old who is going to her first dance. She’s lived a sheltered life and knows with a fair amount of certainty that she will be overshadowed by her older and more attractive sister. But she is looking forward to this opportunity to spread her wings and just maybe enjoy herself.

The night presents a mixed bag of results for her and the emotional roller coaster she has been on throughout the night culminates in two significant events that change Olivia in ways she had never anticipated and she begins to gather her emotions when she realizes that she was not prepared for the most important events of the night. This was a pretty straight forward coming of age story until she realizes the importance of the two events and that is what made this book so much more than that.

The writing itself was unlike any I’ve read recently. Lehmann would drastically change gears from short, static sentences to lovely constructions of nearly poetic prose. She describes the appearance of Olivia’s brother James along with Miss Mivart, returning from their nature walk in this way:

”Beside him stalked Miss Mivart, gaunt, refined in black velvet toque, astrakhan bolero, voluminous claret-colored skirt trimmed with rows of black braid, black galoshes: fantastic garb, persisting year in, year out, through summer heat and winter cold, proclaiming her status of gentlewoman in reduced circumstances as unmistakably as did her nose the chronic nature of her dyspepsia. Poor Miss Mivart; but poorer James, wretched little sacrifice!...incongruous pair yoked together by Mother’s implacable benevolence. For Miss Mivart and her friend Miss Toomer, relics cast up none knew whence, united none knew why---(by some past similar chronicle, one surmised, of drab reversal and disappointment, investments mismanaged, confidence misplaced, schemes miscarried, strokes, creeping deaths by cancer, drain of savings)---dwelt together in a cottage on the green, and eked out a totally inadequate income in various painful and ladylike ways.”

I just love that passage. Could it be more ironically descriptive? I don’t think so. Highly recommended. ( )

I probably would have liked this more if I had read it first as an adolescent. ( )