Dusty Answer

Old Book of the Week by Rosamond Lehmann Does it sound patronizing if I call this a "young person's book"? I don't mean it to—realizing what it is (a book that finds it impossible to imagine what it's like to live past the age of 25) released me to enjoy it even more fully than I already was. Lehmann herself was only 26 when this debut novel had a Fitzgerald-style scandalous success in the UK in the '20s, and she captures with a lush, breathless intelligence what it feels like to grow into the first years of adulthood and learn that the people you have desired from afar—in this case, a glamorous neighboring family of cousins—can be desired up close, and might (or might not) desire you back. If you feel like being swept away, wade in.