Dance Move
17 February 2022Synopsis
'I could not put this book down and loved every page.' - Salena Godden
'Humane, funny, surprising, profound.' - Chris Power
'A masterpiece.' - David Keenan
Meet Drew Lord Haig, called upon to sing the obscure hit from his youth at a paramilitary event. Or Max, who recalls an eventful journey to a Christian film festival. Meet Mrs Dallesandro, in the tanning salon on her wedding anniversary dreaming of a teenage sexual experience. And Sonya, who scours the streets of Belfast for the missing posters of her dead son.
In Dance Move, the collection of stories from Wendy Erskine, we meet characters who are looking to wrest control of their lives, only to find themselves defined by the moment in their past that marked them.
In these stories – as in real life – the funny, the tender and the devastating go hand in hand. Full of warmth, the familiar and the strange, they are about what it means to live in the world, how far you can end up from where you came from, and what it means to look back.
Shortlisted for the irish Book Awards Short Story of the Year.
Shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize.
Details
17 February 2022
9781529085242Reviews
Erskine is less interested in dispensing wisdom than in evoking the ambient pathos of ordinary lives. The understated yet distinctive sensibility first showcased in her 2018 debut collection, Sweet Home, is well honed in this impressive follow-up.FT
Wendy Erskine is the greatest short story writer of her generation. Dance Move is a masterpiece.David Keenan
No one writes the bare-knuckle crossroads of sex and class like Wendy Erskine!
Joanna Walsh
The stories are never sentimental, nor do they strain credulity. What grounds them is Erskine’s distinctive style: she is a great noticer, with an eye for microscopic detail, and pays close attention to the syntax and cadences of ordinary conversation. . . She is also extremely funny.Spectator
