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Summary
Summary
Violet Hetherington has taken the rash step of joining a transatlantic cruise to New York to visit Edwin, an old friend. As she makes the six-day crossing, she relives the traumatic events that led to her losing Edwin's friendship and abandoning her career as a poet for the safety of marriage and domesticity.
Despite her natural reserve, she meets a rich variety of passengers traveling with her, who affect her understanding of her own past. Most significant, she meets Dino, the dancing host, whose motives in befriending Vi are shady but who teaches her to ballroom dance and inadvertently helps her to recover from her past.
Moving between the late sixties and the present day, Dancing Backwards is written with the lightness of touch and psychological insight that characterize Salley Vickers's acclaimed work. This bittersweet novel is subtle, poignant, and wonderfully entertaining.
Author Notes
Salley Vickers has worked as a dancer, an artist's model, a university professor of literature, and a psychoanalyst. She now writes full-time.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Leaving her grown sons in Britain, recently widowed Violet Hetherington takes a six-day transatlantic cruise to New York to look up an old friend whom she let down decades before. Naturally shy, Violet is drawn out of her shell by a fascinating cast of fellow seafarers, including the crude Les Garson and his long-suffering wife, Valerie; the wise Miss Foot; dance instructor Dino, a suave Briton with a fake Italian accent; anxious steward Renato; cheerful couple Ken and Jen Morrison; and intellectual Americans Martha Cheever and Balthazar Lincoln. Taking the advice of Miss Foot to heart-"The world always responds if we listen"-Violet, taken by her new companions, follows her instinct to dance, and gets closer to Dino, who helps Violet reconcile her traumatic past. Interwoven with the at-sea narrative are vignettes from Violet's past, including her unhappy life with abusive first husband Bruno, which sheds light on her personality quirks, her emotionally risky journey, and her long-abandoned dreams. The latest from British author and literature professor Vickers is a moving story of a good second-chance romance. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
After the death of her second husband, Violet Hetherington, formerly the poet H. V. St. John, embarks on a transatlantic cruise to visit an estranged friend in New York. While the ship pushes westward, Vi recalls bittersweet memories from the late sixties that led her to chose security and marriage over friendship and poetry. Meanwhile, the ship's passengers prove to be a mix of strangers who help Vi rethink her past and welcome the possibility of a happy future. The story of Vi's past is significantly more interesting than the somewhat redundant narrative aboard ship. Hetherington's development as a poet and her love of culture brings to mind scenes from the 2008 movie An Education and the autobiography of the same title by Lynn Barber. Vickers' sixth novel, though uneven, offers satisfying reflections on memory, loss, and love.--Paulson, Heather Copyright 2010 Booklist
Guardian Review
Ships are tempting for novelists, providing a bounded, unchanging environment in which characters have little choice but to interact. They can't escape each other and they can't escape themselves. Think of Ishmael and Queequeg, unlikely bedfellows forced to sleep side by side, or of Pi and Richard Parker (even more unlikely). Removed from everyday constraint and convention, characters can flirt and reflect endlessly. There are problems, though. Claustrophobia and tedium are never far off. Sooner or later you'll use up a whole page itemising the breakfast buffet (see page 18 of this novel), and there are only so many times you can describe the sea. One can soon begin, as a reader, to long for the world that has been removed. Is it any wonder that such novels so often end with the ship sinking? Salley Vickers's new novel takes place over the six days of a transatlantic cruise. Violet Hetherington, once an acclaimed poet, now the recently widowed wife of a solicitor, has emerged from her secure but uneventful marriage to seek closure on a relationship that went wrong 20 years before. Troubled by guilt, she prepares herself for the encounter by reading through her old notebooks, which she has conveniently remembered to take with her. Slowly, a picture emerges of Violet's early life: as an intelligent but rather shy girl, somewhat adrift at Cambridge, she falls under the spell of Edwin, a research student with a special interest in Ovid, who later becomes a successful poet himself. Their relationship spirals out from a seminar conducted by Edwin on John Donne's poem "The Ecstasy", whose curious verb "interinanimates" resonates throughout the novel as an emblem of the creative power of love. The third party in Vi and Edwin's relationship, however, is Bruno, anthropologist and poet, Edwin's childhood friend and, according to him, "a kind of genius". A triangular tussle ensues between the three that ends with Edwin jailed at the local police station, while Vi looks lamely on. But Violet, in the present day, cannot escape her fellow passengers and is frequently brought back from her recollections by their attentions. They include the garish Jen and Ken Morrison, whose characters also rhyme; retired sea dog Captain Riley ("they can't keep me away"), who sees the world through the eyes of his deceased wife; and batty Mrs Foot, who sees auras but speaks sense. Slightly more troubling are the staff. When not indulging in Fawlty Towers -style tantrums, they speculate from afar on who among the passengers might offer rich pickings. Thus Vi is talked into taking dancing lessons from creepy Dino (real name Des, from Leicester), which leads to the mysteri ous loss of her precious engagement ring. Violet, who frequently (and rather annoyingly) exclaims "goodness" and "heavens", naturally attracts goodness (as Mrs Foot points out), and the novel works through its complex moral twists with the stately grace of an ocean liner. Indeed, despite some moments of glaring seediness, Dancing Backwards is so well turned out, one can feel quite scruffy after reading it. In some ways it seems to belong to a different age. In the faded retro grandeur of the Queen Caroline, we could be in almost any decade of the last century. The passengers could have stepped out of an Aldous Huxley novel. A reference to the internet comes across as a shocking anachronism; more importantly, Vi's world of struggling poets does not convince. The odd evocation of Ted and Sylvia in the names Edwin and Vi, and their poetry magazine Ariel, seems wrongly pitched. Vi and Edwin are pale shadows of their brooding counterparts, and the languid world of slow inspiration (Vi has not written a poem for 20 years) looks far removed from the bold, busy world of today's bards. Furthermore, Vickers closes the book with Vi's new poem, and it's a clunking thing of archaic inversions and jarring rhymes. So one is left with an elegant waltz through a personal history littered with betrayal and regret, crisply and carefully told. Just remember to put on your Sunday best and wash behind your ears when you read it. Gerard Woodward's most recent book is Caravan Thieves (Vintage). Caption: article-vickers.1 Slowly, a picture emerges of Violet's early life: as an intelligent but rather shy girl, somewhat adrift at Cambridge, she falls under the spell of Edwin, a research student with a special interest in Ovid, who later becomes a successful poet himself. Their relationship spirals out from a seminar conducted by Edwin on John Donne's poem "The Ecstasy", whose curious verb "interinanimates" resonates throughout the novel as an emblem of the creative power of love. The third party in Vi and Edwin's relationship, however, is Bruno, anthropologist and poet, Edwin's childhood friend and, according to him, "a kind of genius". A triangular tussle ensues between the three that ends with Edwin jailed at the local police station, while Vi looks lamely on. - Gerard Woodward.
Kirkus Review
Vickers (Where Three Roads Meet, 2008, etc.), usually adept at combining philosophy with romance, stumbles in this airless story about a British widow who travels by ocean liner to visit an old friend in New York.Violet's husband, a kindly lawyer she never passionately loved, has recently died, so Violet decides to splurge on a luxury sea voyage to visit her old friend Edwin, a poet she lost touch with years ago, even before he moved abroad. On board, Violet rather haughtily looks down on her fellow passengers, whom she considers boring and/or pretentious. But she is also frazzled. She's lost her cell phone and contact list. Cowed by her well-meaning if overbearing room steward Renato, she attends a tea dance where the Italian instructor Dino (real name Des, Italian accent fake) quickly susses her out as a possible mark, a lonely woman with money. She enjoys dancing with Dino, but her mind is actually elsewhere. She's more interested in remembering her life in the 1960s when she met Edwin. Her teacher at Cambridge, he took her under his wing and became her mentor and closest friend. Soon they moved in together, platonically since he was gay, and began a literary magazine. He encouraged her writing. But the idyll was disturbed when his old school friend Bruno showed up. Violet claimed to hate Bruno and his bullying personality, but soon they were lovers. Edwin moved to Oxford, and Violet moved in with Bruno in London. Before their terrible marriage ended badly, Bruno caused Violet to abandon Edwin in a time of need. Or so she's believed all these years. Once she reaches New Yorkafter a few unsurprising on-board intriguesshe learns not only that Edwin holds no ill will but also what readers have assumedthat Bruno and Edwin were lovers all along.The unsympathetic characters are less a problem than the artificial, lifeless world Vickers forces them to inhabit.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Vi Hetherington boards the Queen Caroline with some trepidation. Not a fan of group activity but apprehensive of being on her own, she still isn't sure why she is standing in line in Southampton to take a cruise ship across the Atlantic to New York. The ostensible reason is to meet up with her friend Edwin. They have been estranged for many years, and, now, after the death of her husband, Ted, Vi feels that it is time to bridge this gap. During the crossing, Vi relives how she met Edwin at Cambridge through their mutual love of poetry while also recalling her heartbreaking relationship with first husband, Bruno, which led to the loss of Edwin's friendship. Verdict Fans of Vickers will enjoy this new novel, a story of love and loss that spans moves between current time and the Sixties. Readers who like authors such as Joanna Trollope, Sue Miller, or Elizabeth Berg will also enjoy.-Robin Nesbitt, Columbus Metropolitan Lib., OH (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
1 'What on earth have I done?' Violet Hetherington asked herself. She was standing in one of several queues in the dock at Southampton. The queues, by now spilling out of the cattle shed marked 'Departures', to board the Queen Caroline were long and none was moving. 'It's best to get to the docks late,' her friend Annie had advised. 'If you get there too early you can grow roots hanging about.' Annie, married to a diplomat and full of advice, was a seasoned traveller. But on this occasion her advice was mistaken. After a while an announcement came through the loudspeakers: there had been a 'breakdown in the computer system'. In the face of this setback the atmosphere among the waiting passengers darkened. Some attempted patience, some brave souls even tried to rise to jollity but for the most part the mood became rebellious. The world was going to the dogs and they had paid good money - through the nose, many were inclined to feel - for this voyage. It might be their last chance for a bit of luxury. That they could not even be got aboard efficiently did not promise well. Vi's own instinct was to turn tail. She felt in her bag for her phone and discovered that it was missing. This was a good deal more annoying than the length of the queues. It confirmed an uneasy sense that the whole idea of a cruise was one of her mistakes. She hated any form of group activity and here she was, thrown to the lions and entirely of her own doing. And now there was the nuisance of the phone. Either she had left the wretched thing behind or she had lost it at some point on the journey to the port. She couldn't ring the minicab company to check because the number - along with all her other numbers - was stored in her phone. The very error that her elder son Harry was always counselling her to avoid. Behind her in the queue stood an approachable-looking couple. 'I'm sorry but, stupidly, I seem to have left my mobile behind. I couldn't borrow yours to make one call, could I?' Vi rang Harry on the obliging couple's phone and left a message asking him to ask Kristina, her Polish cleaner, if she would check to see whether the phone had been left behind. If it was not in her flat then she was going to be in trouble, since she had no other means of finding the numbers she needed in New York. A large part of her thought, Good riddance! But this she did not confide to Harry. Harry had come to the view early in life that if not older than his mother he was a good deal more worldly wise. Daniel, her younger son, was more sympathetic to her foibles but that was because he shared them. Dan might easily forget to give Kristina the message at all. The couple whose phone she had borrowed remarked that they had also arrived late expecting to avoid the crowds. 'It was a breeze last time,' the woman, a tall blonde with a ponytail and cowboy boots, recalled. 'We walked straight on. I'm Jen, by the way. He's Ken.' She nodded towards her companion, a broad-shouldered man with a lot of reddish chest hair. 'Ken and Jen Morrison,' the man said. 'We're a double singing act.' 'Really?' Vi was impressed. 'I'm Violet Hetherington. Vi.' 'He's just kidding. Don't be daft.' Jen whacked her husband's chest with a copy of Elle. 'We did think of doing a singing act when we first met, because of Van Morrison,' Ken explained. A gold Star of David was visible beneath his shirt. 'But her over there sings like a neutered cat.' 'Charming,' Jen said equably. 'Look out, we're on the move.' The press of people moved urgently forward, although, as Ken remarked, the boat could hardly leave without them. Reaching the head of their queue at last, Vi parted from the helpful Morrisons and was ushered towards a window where she handed over her travel documents, credit card and submitted to a photograph for the security pass that acted on the cruise in place of money. As she prepared to go aboard, a man stepped forward with another camera. 'Is this necessary?' She detested having her photo taken. 'Smile nicely,' a young woman in uniform suggested. 'But is it a requirement?' 'Excuse me?' 'I do not want another photograph of myself unless it is a requirement for boarding the ship.' 'Not a problem,' said the girl. 'It just makes a nice souvenir of your trip.' She made the hint of an eyebrow gesture towards the photographer, who was not bad-looking and was booked for the whole of the world cruise. 'Go right ahead, madam.' A couple already wearing Queen Caroline sweatshirts had squeezed past and were now blocking the way as they posed, arm round each other's waist. Vi waited while they pronounced 'Sex' for the photographer and everyone had laughed heartily and then, thank goodness, she was walking up what she supposed would once have been a gangplank but was now an arcade adorned with ugly pots of artificial plants. The ship's foyer resembled one of the not-so-grand hotels that have set their sights too high. There were panels of shining fake walnut, extravagant cascades of chandeliers, polished brass plating and carpets patterned in the style commonly found at airports. Vi followed the signs to the 'Elevators' which were lined floor to ceiling with mirrors and crammed with passengers who, bedraggled from early morning starts, luggage disposal and the incurable anxiety induced by travel arrangements, might have preferred to be spared the sight of their multiple reflections. Squashed against the side of the lift by a party of voluble Germans, Vi felt claustrophobia mount along with the lift, which moved upward, stopping at each floor to release a tide of thankful prisoners. But, at last, at the twelfth floor, she stepped out to freedom. And, thank heaven, her room had the balcony she had requested. She had been anxiously rehearsing what to say if it had not. Ignoring Annie's suggestion that she wait for a last-minute deal, she had thrown caution to the winds and paid the highest price she could afford in order to be sure of the sea. The cabin was fitted out in the same would-be-luxury hotel style. The bathroom taps were in the shape of gilded swans, the beaks acting, disconcertingly, as spouts. The bedroom was plain enough, with a double bed covered by a heavy gold counterpane, a desk and chair, a brown velour sofa and, on the wall, three pictures: a field of poppies, a still life of some seashells and a solemn-looking couple in what appeared to be Dutch national dress. Vi examined this to see if it could be removed; but it was screwed to the wall, presumably against the Atlantic swell. She made a mental resolution to pack a screwdriver in future and was unpacking her books when there was a tap at the door and a small man, whose smile revealed excellent teeth, entered and introduced himself as Renato, her steward. He enquired after the state of her health, pledged himself to her service and instructed her about the changing time zones. 'Each day, madam, the clock is set back one hour.' This was the first piece of good news. It had not occurred to her that rather than wasting time she might actually be acquiring it. Renato also informed her of an impending safety drill. 'Guests must assemble for drill in main salon, Deck Three, to practise drill in case of emergency.' 'You mean like the Titanic?' Renato laughed heartily. 'Yes. The Titanic. Very famous. You see the show?' Vi said she had seen the film. 'The show is better. I see it on Broadway. Very good dance.' Renato, it emerged, was a ballroom dance devotee. He explained that before their marriage he had won numerous medals with his wife. 'Where is your wife, Renato?' 'She is in the Philippines. She and the kiddies.' 'That seems a shame. You must miss her.' 'Oh no.' He smiled brilliantly. 'Much better she stay home with the kiddies.' When Vi returned from the drill (conducted amid general, and to her alienating, hilarity) she stepped outside, on to her balcony, to watch the ship get under way. The ship slid out of harbour so gradually that it barely registered that they were on the move. Impossible not to feel a thrill at the sheer enterprise of the thing. A little way off, a fishing trawler was making a white wake. A piece of foam detached itself and became a solitary bird, which flew up into the unblemished sky. A memory of walking along a pebbled seashore on the Suffolk coast, with the gulls crying their cold hearts out in the sky above, assailed her. Well, she had embarked on a voyage of recovery: she must expect these stabs from the past. She squinted her eyes trying to make out the bird performing a graceful arc above her now. An arctic or a common tern? It was too far off to distinguish. It would have to be a comic tern. A summary of the dining regime had been included in the information sent in advance of the voyage. Vi was in the Alexandria Grill, one of the upper echelons of the ship's hierarchical dining system. The 'dress code for tonight in the Alexandria', she read, was 'casual elegant', whatever that meant. She put on a sleeveless linen shift and a plain black jacket. Too bad if it was not sufficiently elegant, or casual. There was the question of what to do with her jewellery, Ted's jewellery: the diamond, sapphire and emerald hoops he had given her as milestones of their marriage; and all the earrings, the brooches and pearls. Vi, who on the whole was carefree about her possessions, had not liked to leave Ted's jewels unprotected. Harry would be sure to disapprove. Eventually, she had packed the lot so now there was the problem of where to keep them. There was a safe in the cabin. But she might easily forget them altogether there and leave them behind. In the end, she put on all the rings and bundled the other jewellery into a shoe bag in her suitcase, which she stowed in one of the wardrobes. She had continued to wear the large solitaire diamond, so worryingly valuable she had forgotten precisely what it was worth, with which Ted had proposed marriage. But she no longer wore the wedding band by which he had sealed the contract. Ted would not have liked this. But poor Ted was dead. Oh, but why always say 'poor' of the dead? Isn't it the living who are in need of sympathy? Violet Hetherington thought, avoiding the cruelly reflecting lifts and running impatiently down the red-carpeted stairs to the restaurant. A questionnaire had been included in the pre-voyage material, requesting that passengers select the numbers with whom they wished to dine. Annie had recommended a table for twelve. 'It makes it easier to get away from bores,' she advised. 'There's safety in numbers.' Quite why Vi had followed Annie's advice in this she couldn't now remember. Maybe it was simply easier: Annie was so full of advice, it was not always possible to be discriminating. Only one fellow traveller was there before her when Vi found her table in the Alexandria, an elderly man with a weathered face and a pepper-and-salt beard, rather more salt than pepper. He looked so like a retired sea captain that she couldn't help feeling smug when it turned out that she had hit the mark. 'Captain Ryle, ma'am. I used to be master of one of the line's ships. They can't keep me away.' Vi allowed her hand to be gripped, somewhat painfully on account of the massed rings. 'Violet Hetherington.' The captain's large sun-spotted hand was unexpectedly soft. Noticing him glance at her left hand, where the solitary diamond glinted, she added, for his sake rather than from any need to confide, 'My husband died last year. This is my first holiday alone.' Captain Ryle's leathery face crumpled into comprehension. 'My wife left me five years ago. Still not got over it.' 'I'm sorry.' She understood that it was death and not any domestic fracture that had removed his wife's company. 'I miss her every hour of the day.' The captain blew his nose unselfconsciously into his table napkin. 'Still, mustn't complain. Kathleen wouldn't approve. She was always one for life, Kath.' 'Yes?' 'She wouldn't have wanted me moaning on. Here.' He thrust at Vi a basket of breads - really, more of a miniature bakery so exotic was the choice. Vi took a roll, changed her mind and then, not liking to put it back, took another. 'Good grub,' the captain said, nodding approvingly at her two rolls. 'Always get good grub on this line.' A couple of Americans were being shown to the table: a long-limbed black man with heavy-rimmed glasses and a small, older-looking woman who might have been taken for his mother had she not been white. The man, in a grey suit and a cream shirt, gave an impression of easy elegance. The woman's hair was done up in an untidy loose bun and her evening suit was a shade of pink which did not suit her pinkish complexion. Side by side, they made a somewhat ill-matched couple. The woman introduced herself as Martha Cleever and her husband as Dr Balthazar Lincoln. 'Balthazar as in the Three Magi?' Vi asked, and was rewarded with a smile so winning that she at once fell a little in love with him. 'I am generally known as Baz. No one manages the other, except my mother.' Leaning across Vi, he helped himself to a roll and she detected in his aftershave a pleasing scent of limes. 'My mother belongs to a mad sect which holds that the "wise men" were angels from Babylon. May I trouble you to pass the butter? She likes to claim she saw an angelic presence hovering over my father's head when I was conceived.' Baz, buttering his roll, afforded Vi again the smile that suggested the conspiracy of long friendship. Encouraged by this, Vi asked, 'Didn't your father mind?' 'If that is who he was. It might easily have been some other chancer. But the man I knew as my father was a patient man (he has passed away now) and he was devoted to my mother. She would not be swayed in any conviction. She is a very stubborn woman, my mother. I am stubborn too, so I know.' 'Baz is one of seven and his mother's favourite.' Martha's tone was mostly indulgent. She explained that she was an attorney in general litigation and her husband had been on a six-month sabbatical at the London School of Economics. They were returning home by boat as he had acquired so many books that it was cheaper for them to accompany the books home by sea. 'Baz just adores books. He wouldn't care what in the world we lost provided his library was saved.' 'Better hope the ship doesn't go down, then!' Two newcomers had joined the table. The man who had spoken introduced himself and his wife as Les and Valerie Garson. Until last year, they had run a garage with a Toyota franchise in Hampshire. They had been promising them selves this trip as a retirement present for he didn't know how long. 'It's ever so exciting, isn't it?' Valerie asked. She looked, Vi thought, a little depressed. Her husband had several complaints. 'No room to swing a cat in our cabin, never mind the wife! Daylight robbery when you think what we're paying for this. Have you seen the price of the booze?' 'Baz doesn't drink,' Martha said, 'so I tend not to much either.' She turned to Vi. 'How about you?' 'I drink like a fish,' Vi said and was rewarded by another dazzling grin from Baz. 'Did you never drink?' she asked. 'My mother's religion forbade it but, you know, when I got to college and it seemed that at long last I could defy her I found I didn't like the taste after all.' 'Did you tell your mother?' 'He did and she said "The Lord works in mysterious ways",' Martha said. Captain Ryle was confiding to no one in particular that until he met his wife his mother had been his rock and stay, when another couple, Greg and Heather, who had left their four-year-old, Patrick, asleep in the cabin, joined the table. 'There's a baby alarm,' Greg explained. He was still under the delusion that everyone was as captivated by his child as he was. 'It goes through to a central minding station and if there's any crying they come and let you know. At least we hope they do.' He laughed nervously. 'He's usually very good.' In the absence of any interest from the other diners, Heather took up the baton of parental concern. 'Only we were worried that the movement of the ship might wake him, you know, in a different environment ...' Vi said that she felt that the rocking of the ship might induce rather than hamper sleep. Patrick's mother looked grateful. The other diners ignored this exchange, supposing, perhaps correctly, that if a stand was not taken from the start the topic of child rearing could take over. The table was set for eleven but only eight guests appeared. 'D'you think they cancelled?' Valerie Garson asked, over her seared yellowfin tuna. 'They won't have got a refund,' Les assured the rest of table. 'I looked into it when it looked as if Val's mother might fall off the branch.' Captain Ryle was tucking into a lamb chop. Years of being at sea had given him an understandable aversion to fish. 'They'll be at one of the other restaurants.' Excerpted from Dancing Backwards by Salley Vickers. Copyright (c) 2010 by Salley Vickers. Published in 2010 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. All rights reserved. This work is protected under copyright laws and reproduction is strictly prohibited. Permission to reproduce the material in any manner or medium must be secured from the Publisher. Excerpted from Dancing Backwards by Salley Vickers All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.