All Fiction Books for you! - Dancing Above the Waves: Some Twists in the Currents

You are here: Home

Dancing Above the Waves: Some Twists in the Currents

Latest News

Dancing starts similarly to Bonfire of the Vanities where Jack, recklessly driving to catch a ferry one rainy morning, strikes a young girl and leaves the scene of the accident, not even bothering to see if she is alive or dead. And, as in Bonfire, the perfect world of a master of the universe begins to crumble around him. While Walerstein does not write this scene with the biting commentary of Tom Wolfe, it effectively set the pace for the rest of the story.

McCalister is not the only self-absorbed character in Dancing; he has an equally self-absorbed wife, Sherry whom he shares a business and a taste for finer things, but their tastes are independent of each other. They jointly run a high-society magazine and put on the public image of a happy and successful couple, but in real life they don’t want to be together much longer and their magazine desperately needs new money to survive. I was left to wonder if Jack wanted to leave Sherry because he sees things that he doesn’t like about himself in the way he conducts his business and in his marriage. Jack has a mistress, Erica Agnelli, a physical therapist who lives on the island where he goes to relax and get away from wife and work. Erica had a previous crush on Jack in high school. Erica loves Jack, only she is hesitant to believe that he will actually leave Sherry. She also witnessed Jack’s hit and run accident, giving her more reason to wonder about his sensitivity. This became important to the story as Jack tries to cover up the accident, find investors for the magazine and fend off another witness to the accident who is trying to blackmail him. While he is trying to take care of his life, he is ignoring Erica’s, even after she’s become pregnant by him.

While Jack has been blackmailed and goes to the extent of burning his car, a classic Porsche with vanity plates, to cover up his accident, dialogue between Jack and the blackmailer does not overly dominate the story. He does not confront the blackmailer until the end, and it will not be someone the reader expects.

It is also interesting that Jack is not done in by cops or by blackmailers, but by his wife and mistress. They have both caught him in wonderment over his cover-ups and deceit. It’s also interesting that he is not surprised or remorseful that he’s been caught; he’s just hoping to start his life over.

Dancing has a story line that will be familiar to anyone who likes movies and thrillers with a similar husband-wife dynamic (Double Jeopardy was one that came to mind). But this novel is very well paced and has some twists and turns that will surprise you, even at the end.

Contact Stuart Nachbar at http://www.EducatedQuest.com, a blog on education politics, policy and technology or read about his first book, The Sex Ed Chronicle, a novel on education and politics in 1980 New Jersey, at http://www.SexEdChronicles.com .