The Weather in the Streets

A chance encounter on a train plunges a woman into an illicit love affair that will change her life forever Ten years after Olivia Curtis attends her first dance-one of the defining moments of her life, as depicted in the classic Invitation to the Waltz-she is divorced and living with her cousin in London. When she gets a call notifying her that her father is gravely ill, she makes preparations to return home to Tulverton, in the English countryside. On the train, she meets Rollo Spencer, her girlhood crush. The older brother of a debutante friend, he and Olivia once shared a fleeting, magical moment on a moonlit terrace that she has never forgotten. Now fate has thrown them together again. They fall in love, and in spite of the fact that Rollo is married, embark on a clandestine affair.   Shockingly ahead of its time, The Weather in the Streets charts the tempestuous course of Olivia and Rollo's forbidden relationship, from the first throes of passion through the toll of their deception on Olivia as she confronts the harsh reality of being the other woman. Lehmann's fearless exploration of friendship, family, aging, and mortality-and the then-taboo subjects of homosexuality, abortion, and drugs-assures her novel's place in the pantheon of twentieth-century classics.