And This Shall Be My Dancing Day, by Jennifer Kavanagh

Author: Jennifer Kavanagh. Review by Diana Jeater

Jennifer Kavanagh’s publications on various aspects of Quaker spirituality will be well known to readers of the Friend. Her latest book is a novel, but it is nevertheless deeply imbued with Quaker sensibility – without ever explicitly mentioning Quakerism. It is an unusual, kind and uplifting book. It manages to be a gripping page-turner, while also bringing the reader to a deeper understanding of how we can find our voices to speak out about injustice.

At first glance, the novel seems to be a delightful Barbara Pym-esque study of a rather sweet menopausal librarian. Emma works in a private collection of classical literature in central London. We quickly learn about her daily commute, her cottage, her cats, her beautiful garden, her companionable elderly neighbour, and her one glorious love affair, cut short by her lover’s death in a car accident.

But behind this small ivory portrait is an unsettling event, which happens right at the start of the book. It turns into a mystery to be solved, and then ultimately into something else entirely. Who left the floral tribute in the derelict house, and to whom? Who is the angry high-flying civil servant who cares about the flowers? How does she connect with Emma, our librarian? Was it really just a traffic accident, or something more sinister, that led to her lover’s death?

By the time these issues are resolved, via an unlikely but satisfying coincidence, the reader has begun to realise that this isn’t a mystery story at all. It’s a story about how we learn to grieve, to find our voices, and help and support each other in speaking out when we encounter wrong. In the final, delicate moments we accompany Emma as she takes a few small steps – but also huge steps – towards a new identity and inner strength. Quakers will recognise this journey.

The book is full of vividly-conjured minor characters – the neighbour, the niece, the co-workers – who have little significance in driving the plot or solving the mystery. They do, however, create a rich, lived world in which diverse people find ways to connect together, and meet each other as fellow humans in the complicated process of being alive. It’s also one of the few books that doesn’t shy away from discussing menopause as an important experience in older women’s lives.

In a book full of humanity, we understand and sympathise with how people fall into scratchiness with each other, grow apart, and grow together again. In a final coda, the plot manages a satisfying kind of fairytale ending, in which a good person finds happiness, in the face of terrifying social and political headwinds that could have destroyed them entirely.

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