Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #727846 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 156 pages

Synopsis
Secrets and their consequences run deep through Sarah Salway's short stories in this haunting and sharply written collection. A bored housewife welcomes the nomadic painter of family pets into her home and commissions a portrait of her fridge; a schoolboy learns how to survive when his gang turns against him; a man's life is turned around when he hears his wife make a new noise in bed, and in the title story, a dance between husband and wife at a school ceilidh turns into a battle for survival. This is domestic life turned on its head, with Salway's witty and economic prose capturing the private moments of transformation by some very different characters on the edge. Praise for Sarah Salway's novel, "Something Beginning With": "Both hilarious and heart-warming - and it's transformed into something even more original and captivating by the novel's unlikely obsession with the alphabet." - "Red Magazine". "Salway has stitched together a delightful, original novel that both guides you and makes you search yourself ...The novel explores love and work, friendship and family, how people are connected - or disconnected - in various structures and the extent to which we can restructure our " - "Mslexia." "Quirky and funny, but also surprisingly poignant." - "Daily Mail".

Customer Reviews

A Fascinating Collection
Leading the Dance is a collection of short stories, bound together by the concept of secrets within everyday life. Sarah manges to write colourful characters, and fascinating tales, all presented within a few pages, something that I believe takes great writing skill.

Some of my personal highlights include a woman who has a portrait done of the contents of her fridge, which seems amusing, but deals with bulimia; a wife who secretly follows her husband's affair via his emails; a touching tale of two sisters and their loneliness; a boy who has been taught to ignore his mother's afternoon visitors; and especially the woman who locks another woman in her basement!

I can honestly say that not one tale within this collection disappointed, and I'm sure everyone will find their own personal favourite. Despite being very short, each one seems to have depth, and I will certainly be going back to read them again.

I very much enjoyed Sarah's voice, and the way she writes, and I will be actively hunting more of her work.

Great short story writing
I enjoyed this very much. Lots of different characters and voices, most of them rather disturbing, all presented very skilfully. I loved the story of the woman in the basement, and the one about the little boy in the car. Excellent stuff.

I shall look out for other work by Sarah Salway.

Uncompromising honesty
This selection of short stories from Sarah Salway focuses on the relationships of ordinary people, from siblings, parents and children, to lovers and friends. I was immediately struck by Salway's ability to cut right down to the uncompromising truth about her characters lives. In a succinct amount of prose the reader is forced to view the depth and complexity of human nature, particularly the absence of logic when emotion and decision making is brought into question. With unembarrassed honesty and almost poetic use of language Salway has created a collection of stories capable of making you gasp with recognition.

However, such brutality, even when beautifully portrayed can become hard to digest and I found my enjoyment of the book was tempered by my hope that the next story would contain a little more light, humour or optimism, that the skill describing isolation, selfishness and domination would also apply itself to genuine affection. Emptiness almost became a cliché that threatened to undercut the originality of the action.

If you are in the mood for heart warming tales this isn't for you but if you are prepared to remove the rose-tinted spectacles for a while, you will find much to admire and appreciate in Salway's collection of stories.