Synopsis
'Daring, funny, heartbreaking' – Observer
'One of the greats' - Lucy Caldwell, author of Intimacies
'Comic brilliance' - Sinéad Gleeson, author of Constellations
* As Read on BBC Radio 4 * Shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize * The Irish Times Books of the Year *
From the prize-winning author of The Benefactors, Wendy Erskine’s Dance Move is about the hugeness of life as seen through glimpses of the everyday.
Meet Drew Lord Haig, called on to sing an obscure hit from his youth at a paramilitary event. Meet Max as he recalls an eventful journey to a Christian film festival. And Mrs Dallesandro who dreams of being a teenager again as she sits in a tanning salon on her wedding anniversary. In these stories, Erskine's characters' wishes and hopes often fall short of their grasp.
'Ingenious' - The Irish Times
Shortlisted for the An Post Irish Book Awards Short Story of the Year
Details
17 February 2022
9781529085235Reviews
Comic brillianceSinéad Gleeson, Guardian
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 has the rarest and most precious of a fiction writer’s gifts: the ability to unveil all the passion, pathos, comedy and beauty just beneath the surface of the most seemingly ordinary lives. She isn’t just one of the leading writers of short fiction at work today but one of the leading writers, period.Matt Rowland Hill, author of Original Sins
Wendy Erskine is the greatest short story writer of her generation. Dance Move is a masterpiece.David Keenan
