Dance Move

(Paperback)

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'One of the greats' - Lucy Caldwell 'Comic brilliance' - Sinad Gleeson 'Ingenious' - The Irish Times 'Daring, funny, heartbreaking' - Observer Following the prize-winning Sweet Home, Wendy Erskine's Belfast is once again illuminated. 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. Brilliantly drawn, Dance Move is about the hugeness of life as seen through glimpses of the everyday. 'A masterpiece' - David Keenan 'Wendy Erskine's debut, Sweet Home, was pitch perfect . . . Dance Move is equally brilliant' - The Daily Mail 'Erskine's stories open slight, but they contain more than it seems possible for short stories to contain' - Keith Ridgway '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 As Read on BBC Radio 4 Shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize Shortlisted for the An Post Irish Book Awards Short Story of the Year The Irish Times Books of the Year 2022

Reviews

Comic brilliance -- Sinad 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 writers gifts: the ability to unveil all the passion, pathos, comedy and beauty just beneath the surface of the most seemingly ordinary lives. She isnt 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
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 Erskines 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 *
A spectacular feat in the short story form . . . Erskines Dance Move has such a beautiful deftness of touch that in writing the intricacies and intimacies between people in their most vulnerable moments, there is a tenderness felt by the reader which surpasses words.' * Caught By The River *
The people that inhabit Wendy Erskines stories are not merely characters, but instead are living, breathing entities whose lives, you feel, continue beyond the page. Few writers achieve this depth of human understanding so succinctly, and to read Dance Move is to step into their shadowed worlds. It also cements her status as simply one of the very best short story writers around. -- Benjamin Myers
Dance Move is a triumph, each story so perfectly formed, each character vividly set and startling. I could not put this book down and loved every page. Wendy Erskine is a profound and ingenious story teller, a magnificent writer of the highest calibre. -- Salena Godden
Erskine's stories open slight, but they contain more than it seems possible for short stories to contain. Their warmth and depth - even in their depictions of lives that are cold, or shallow, or hopelessly adrift - is testament not only to Erskine's unparalleled skill as a writer of short stories, but also to her humanity. Her characters are astonishingly alive. They rise off the pages of Dance Move and they lodge in the heart, and stay there. -- Keith Ridgway
There are few short story writers I look forward to reading as much as Wendy Erskine. Humane, funny, surprising, profound; in Dance Move she does it all. -- Chris Power
Daring, funny, heartbreaking . . . not to be missed * Observer *
So funny and so moving. Erskine's writing is like gentle razor blades, carving blissfully through to the real. -- Ruby Cowling
Dance Move is the most consummate book of short stories I know. -- Tom Conaghan * Irish Times *
No one is writing better stories than Wendy Erskine. -- John Mitchinson
I wondered if Dance Move . . . could possibly surpass Erskines debut Sweet Home. It does. -- Matt Rowland Hill, author of Original Sins: A Memoir
Wendy Erskine is like Vermeer, I think. In the same way that supposedly ordinary people and places are illuminated by Vermeer in a way that is technically flawless, but also imbued with something extra that cant be extracted from the whole. I do think it is genius really, in the both of them. -- Ben Pester, author of Am I In The Right Place
Wendy Erskines debut, Sweet Home, was pitch perfect . . . Dance Move is equally brilliant; set in Belfast and brimful of well drawn, compelling characters, these spare, spacious stories pack an emotional punch * Daily Mail *
Erskines pitch is close to perfect, and as a chronicler of the human condition, she has the most penetrating gaze. * iNews *
If theres a sharper, brighter, truer, funnier, more compelling, more intensely and rewardingly attentive storyteller around Id like to know who. -- David Hayden
Exhilarating . . . a vivacious sweep of characters . . . the turn of events ingenious . . . * Irish Times *
A remarkable revelation of the everyday extraordinary. Erskine has shown us how the banal can also be epic in its compassion and understated raw beauty. This is a book that carries with it a quiet joy, a reminder of the intensity of life, even at its most quotidian. * Totally Dublin *
Superb * Hot Press *
Storytelling that is both compelling and original . . . Dance Move is the work of a writer of immense skill * Sunday Independent *
A propulsive and unmissable collection of tales full of piercing details and observations. * nb. Magazine *

Author Bio

Wendy Erskine lives in Belfast. Sweet Home, her first collection of stories, was shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize and the Republic of Consciousness Prize. It was longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and won the 2020 Butler Literary Award. Dance Move was published in 2022.