bridgey_bear's review
3.0
A bit bittersweet, but overall very good. I enjoyed the style. I received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads.
ruthie_the_librarian's review
4.0
I wasn't quite sure where this story was going, but I was interested in Violet and her journey on the cruise. In the end, it was much deeper and darker than I was expecting, and I loved the surface level story skirting over the top of the deeper, darker undercurrents of Violet coming to terms with her past. I like Salley Vickers writing style, and I really liked Violet...Yes, you want to shake her sometimes during the story, but I was very fond of her, and I liked the slow, subtle reveal of the story behind her life.
jenlouden's review
4.0
Ms. Vickers is one of my favorite authors, so masterful at showing rather than telling as well as exploring the oddities of being a human. Why do we do what we do? Her fiction teaches me to be a better person & writer.
dozylocal's review
3.0
3.5 stars. This book didn't start well for me. First, there were a lot of names and I couldn't keep track of them all. Second, the first few chapters seemed very random and mundane. However, as the story unfolded and the main character started reflecting more on her past and the events that had led to her being on the ship, it became more interesting and, in the end, what I thought would be quite an average (if not boring) book actually became one that was slightly above average. The title and cover are also a little bit misleading, as dancing doesn't really feature much at all (at least, not in the literal sense).
balancinghistorybooks's review
4.0
I cannot help but feel that British author Salley Vickers is somewhat underrated. I have not seen many reviews of her work online, or on platforms like BookTube, and her works tend to have rather low overall ratings on Goodreads. However, she is an author whose work I have very much enjoyed since first picking up Miss Garnet's Angel back in 2012.
I picked up one of her novels, Dancing Backwards, when my library first reopened for browsing, having been shut for four months due to the pandemic. Stuck in one place, with little opportunity to travel, I decided that I wanted to read as many books about journeys as was possible. Dancing Backwards, therefore, seemed perfect. The protagonist of the piece, a woman named Violet Hetherington, is travelling to New York by ship, to meet an old acquaintance. Her journey is as much an inner one as a physical one; thus, I was reminded of Virginia Woolf's early masterpiece, The Voyage Out.
As ever, Vickers' prose is remarkably vivid from the outset. Her writing is intelligent, and it has a lot of depth to it. She never loses the focus of Violet, but is astute at writing about her surroundings, and of the other characters who are taking the same journey. Violet feels wholly realistic; we learn about her past and present, and her hopes for the future, through the many vignettes which make up the novel's structure. She can be rather an acerbic woman, and I enjoyed her dark humour. Vickers wonderfully charts Violet's relationships, and deftly handles the way in which the narrative moves back and forth in time. Dancing Backwards is a wonderful novel about taking chances, and being true to oneself.
I picked up one of her novels, Dancing Backwards, when my library first reopened for browsing, having been shut for four months due to the pandemic. Stuck in one place, with little opportunity to travel, I decided that I wanted to read as many books about journeys as was possible. Dancing Backwards, therefore, seemed perfect. The protagonist of the piece, a woman named Violet Hetherington, is travelling to New York by ship, to meet an old acquaintance. Her journey is as much an inner one as a physical one; thus, I was reminded of Virginia Woolf's early masterpiece, The Voyage Out.
As ever, Vickers' prose is remarkably vivid from the outset. Her writing is intelligent, and it has a lot of depth to it. She never loses the focus of Violet, but is astute at writing about her surroundings, and of the other characters who are taking the same journey. Violet feels wholly realistic; we learn about her past and present, and her hopes for the future, through the many vignettes which make up the novel's structure. She can be rather an acerbic woman, and I enjoyed her dark humour. Vickers wonderfully charts Violet's relationships, and deftly handles the way in which the narrative moves back and forth in time. Dancing Backwards is a wonderful novel about taking chances, and being true to oneself.
lnatal's review
2.0
From BBC Radio 4 - Book at Bedtime:
Eileen Atkins reads from Salley Vickers' acclaimed new novel, Dancing Backwards
Violet Hetherington's husband has recently died. Alone, she decides to take a cruise-ship crossing to visit her old friend, Edwin, in New York.
As she journeys across the Atlantic the quiet Violet begins to blossom - learning to ballroom dance, taking up smoking again, befriending a famously seething theatre critic. And in her time alone she reminisces about her early adulthood as a student at Cambridge. It's at Cambridge that she meets Edwin. Edwin, it soon becomes clear, is someone she's betrayed and someone she's both terrified and desperate to see again. The story that unfolds about the young Violet holds the secret to that betrayal.
Written and abridged by Salley Vickers. Vickers is a critically acclaimed, best-selling novelist whose work includes Mr Golightly's Holiday, Instances of the Number 3, Miss Garnet's Angel and The Other Side of You. Miss Garnet's Angel and The Other Side of You were both popular Book at Bedtimes. Last year she dramatised her version of the Oedipus myth, Where Three Roads Meet, for Radio 4's Afternoon Play slot. Before becoming a full time writer she was a psychoanalyst.
Produced by Kirsty Williams.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00r9y3l
Eileen Atkins reads from Salley Vickers' acclaimed new novel, Dancing Backwards
Violet Hetherington's husband has recently died. Alone, she decides to take a cruise-ship crossing to visit her old friend, Edwin, in New York.
As she journeys across the Atlantic the quiet Violet begins to blossom - learning to ballroom dance, taking up smoking again, befriending a famously seething theatre critic. And in her time alone she reminisces about her early adulthood as a student at Cambridge. It's at Cambridge that she meets Edwin. Edwin, it soon becomes clear, is someone she's betrayed and someone she's both terrified and desperate to see again. The story that unfolds about the young Violet holds the secret to that betrayal.
Written and abridged by Salley Vickers. Vickers is a critically acclaimed, best-selling novelist whose work includes Mr Golightly's Holiday, Instances of the Number 3, Miss Garnet's Angel and The Other Side of You. Miss Garnet's Angel and The Other Side of You were both popular Book at Bedtimes. Last year she dramatised her version of the Oedipus myth, Where Three Roads Meet, for Radio 4's Afternoon Play slot. Before becoming a full time writer she was a psychoanalyst.
Produced by Kirsty Williams.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00r9y3l
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