Schwer verletzt und orientierungslos: So findet sich Paulina Almada (35), Mitarbeiterin eines Versicherungsbüros, nach einem Verkehrsunfall in ihrem demolierten Auto am Rande von Buenos Aires wieder. Was ist passiert? Wer ist die 15-Jährige auf dem Rücksitz? Langsam kehren Paulinas Erinnerungen zurück.

„Dancing Queen“ ist der Debütroman von Camila Fabbri.

Unterteilt in 27 Kapitel, wird die Geschichte im Präsens und in der Ich-Perspektive aus der Sicht von Paulina erzählt. Dabei gibt es zwei Ebenen, die sich abwechseln: einerseits die gegenwärtigen Ereignisse, andererseits die Rückblenden zu Geschehnissen aus ihrem Leben vor dem Unfall. Die Handlung spielt Anfang der 2020er-Jahre in Buenos Aires und in der Provinz, die an die Hauptstadt angrenzt.

Die Sprache des Romans ist schnörkellos, nüchtern und klar. Dennoch gibt es einige sehr treffende Sprachbilder. Zudem transportiert der Schreibstil viel Atmosphäre. Auffällig ist der sarkastische Unterton.

In inhaltlicher Hinsicht ist der nur etwa 170 Seiten dünne Roman erstaunlich vielschichtig und facettenreich. Es geht um romantische Beziehungen, Einsamkeit, Kinderwunsch, sexuelle Gewalt und einiges mehr. Dazwischen sind feministische Anklänge zu finden. Damit greift die Geschichte viele Themen auf, die Frauen in ihren Dreißigern bewegen, und bietet Impulse zum Nachdenken.

Als nicht ganz altersgerecht, eher unreif habe ich jedoch die Protagonistin empfunden. Paulina wirkt durchaus lebensnah gezeichnet. Ihre spröde, launische, oft distanzierte, Gleichgültigkeit ausstrahlende, unhöfliche und fast unverschämte Art sowie ihre innerliche Widersprüchlichkeit machen es mir allerdings schwer, einen Zugang zu ihr zu finden. Auch ihre beinahe exzessive Vorliebe für Pornografie ist ein wenig befremdlich. Mitunter hatte ich den Eindruck, dass sie psychologische Hilfe benötigt.

Besonders die Kapitel nach dem Unfall sorgen für Spannung. Andere Passagen, vor allem in der ersten Hälfte des Romans, konnten mich weniger abholen. Der Abschluss des Romans bleibt etwas diffus und lässt viel Raum für eigene Interpretationen.

Wie die Autorin in einem Interview erklärte, soll der Titel ironisch gemeint sein. Für mich funktioniert er leider nicht. Daran ändert auch die Tatsache nichts, dass die deutsche Version - anders als das spanischsprachige Original („La Reina del Baile“) - den eingangs zitierten ABBA-Song aufgreift. Das Covermotiv passt hingegen ganz gut.

Mein Fazit:
Mit „Dancing Queen“ hat mich Camila Fabbri nicht jeglicher Hinsicht überzeugt. Ein ungewöhnliches und eigenwilliges Debüt, das mich, offen gestanden, ein wenig ratlos zurücklässt.

by Elen Sentier

This was very different from what I expected. Rather than being specifically about numerology, the book is effectively a guidebook for a certain set of new age and Pagan beliefs that might or might not be associated with numerology. People interested in the title subject will have to wade through reincarnation, dowsing to establish your time of conception and some 'out there' concepts to find relevant information.

The graphs and charts make no sense to me at all. The author suggests meditating over them until it sinks in, but I'd rather have had the system explained in some manner than just thrown out there to absorb. Eventually she does write about number meanings and later gets into how to establish birth and name numbers in the same ways that other numerology books do, but there is only references to [number] people like 5 people, eight people, etc and no extrapolation of the relevance of birth number as opposed to name number apart from one is flexible and the other not, and nothing whatsoever about combining the two.

Overall I found the writing disjointed and digressive with very little clear information offered. I get the impression that the author does have some deep understandings, but just hasn't worked out how to express them. I had hoped for more, I admit. More commercial books on the subject seem cold and limited, but they actually offer more information than I found here. Very disappointing.

Dancing on Seaside takes place in Atlantic City during the summer of 1977, before legalized gambling changed the nature of the city's culture. It captures a bygone era during which the city was known more for its poverty than for opulent casinos or winning games.

Readers familiar with Atlantic City's present-day milieu or past history will find delightful this nostalgic, realistic story which brings to life the region's culture from the eyes of son Jamie and his mother. Both experience a magical last summer, many new opportunities and transitions in their lives and relationship, and the changing sands of time.

To Jamie, it's a summer on the cusp of positive change. It's the summer before high school, when he's required to mature in many ways. For his mother, it's a journey into caretaking and seeing her priorities change from son to mother as she accepts a new and challenging role. And then there's a family history to struggle with, which both impacts their lives and threatens future generations.

Atlantic City is not the only thing waking up in this story. So are characters whose lives hang in balance and slowly tip into unfamiliar territory.

The sights, sounds, and smells of the piers, boardwalk, tides, and view of Atlantic City come to life under the astute observational pen of Julius James DeAngelus. There's a bitter wind blowing that challenges innocence, exposing closely-held secrets and changing lives. Mother and son find themselves nearly swept away by its force. Each must loosen their defenses, develop new awareness of one another and themselves, and hone new objectives.

Dancing on Seaside opens gently as these waves of change lap at a reader's senses, easing into these dilemmas only after taking time to craft an appropriate and especially well-detailed sense of time, place, and perspective. Against this backdrop, guilt, fear, and frightening revelations take their place and reflect some of the social changes affecting the broader picture of Atlantic City and the 1970s era as a whole.

Readers looking for an atmospheric, engrossing story of evolution in a season that changes everything will find Dancing on Seaside a gently compelling read, perfect for a beach tote and a summer's contemplation.

I was a massive Baryshnikov fan back in the 70s and 80s, and therefore this memoir by corps de ballet dancer Michael Langlois was instantly of interest. As it turns out, he's also a reasonably interesting man himself. He's particularly frank about two subjects: the perils of eating disorders, and the way he had to negotiate being a straight ballet dancer (like his hero/employer Baryshnikov, incidentally), given both the outside world's stereotyping and the actuality of maintaining friendships and boundaries within the ballet world itself. He appears to have managed a very close friendship and, for a time, roommate relationship, with gay dancer Peter Fonseca, for instance (alas, Fonseca was part of the dreadful losses to AIDS in the ballet world in the 80s and 90s). And although I was, of course, in it for the celebrity cameos, his anecdotes about the regular company members, musicians and coaching staff are quite engaging: he doesn't hesitate to re-create conversations and describe physical surroundings in a fair bit of detail. Finally, he is just about forthcoming enough (i.e. not too much) about the progress and eventual deterioration of the relationship with his girlfriend Julie, another dancer in the company.

Living up to the promise of the subtitle, Baryshnikov makes his appearance throughout a large part of the book, although it is clear there was never any more of a relationship between the two men than employer/employee, or coach/dancer. Langlois is actually quite funny about Baryshnikov's inability to articulate exactly what he wanted from a less talented dancer; like many with brilliant gifts, he seems, by this author's account, to have been a bit stymied by the fact that they didn't just *know* how to do it, as he did himself. Baryshnikov also called Langlois "Mikey" for many years, and Langlois generously (and probably correctly) surmises that he didn't realize the diminutive was derogatory, unlike his own "Misha", by which everyone seems to have known him.

Langlois is also likeably frank about the impact of realizing that his talent, though good, was not first-class (hence the book title), and how he eventually resolved that by moving first to smaller companies where he could do better roles, and then eventually out of the ballet world altogether. He now has an online presence as a massage therapist.