A poignant character study, "Ballroom", pulses with the underlying rhythm of the Tango dance. Author Alice Simpson's debut work centers around a New York dance hall of the late 1990's--long past its glamorous heyday, but still offering an essence of grandeur and the hope of grand dreams. Connecting its devotees with a fleeting reprieve from the realities of daily life, the Ballroom is an escape route set to a rhythmic beat. Among those linked together in interconnected storylines are: Harry Korn, the aging dance master; Sarah Dreyfus, single and approaching forty with a loudly ticking clock; Gabriel Katz, resplendent in his self-styled presentations; Joseph, who longs for Sarah to notice him as more than a dance partner; Maria Rodriguez,a star in her own right, and the apple of dance master's eye; and Angel Morez, Maria's partner, and a man with many plans of his own. Caught up in the atmosphere and ambiance of the grand old Ballroom, each of them seeks their own version of time in the spotlight--time to dance, to dream, to dare to engage in something more than the routine of their everyday lives. Each of them will experience unimagined highs and lows as they are propelled ever forward by the driving force of the dance.

BookCopy Gratis Amazon Vine ( )

Ballroom by Alice Simpson is a recommended novel only for those who enjoy character studies of the disagreeable and ballroom dancing.

In Ballroom, a debut novel, we meet a cast of characters who gather to dance at The Ballroom. All of them are loyal patrons who love to dance, even if for most of them it is simple a way to escape their sad, dreary lives and create superficial connection with others. We also meet 65 year old Harry Korn who has been teaching 20 year old Maria how to dance since she was a child. Harry is under the illusion that he and Maria will run off together when she turns 21. Maria has a dance partner, Angel, and they are winning trophies together even as Maria finishes college and heads off to grad school. Sarah is a lonely woman searching for love with a dance partner, while Joseph is a lonely man who thinks his dream of a family will be realized through a dance partner at the Ballroom. Gabriel is a man who is seducing women he meets to escape from his real life.

While Simpson does a good job at characterization, I couldn't relate to or sympathize with even one of these characters. They are all so sad and unlikeable, even young Maria, and desperately wanting to change their lives but totally ineffectual and impotent to do anything concrete. Frankly, I found the whole Harry and Maria plot line repulsive, disgusting, and creepy, which might have worked had Simpson used that feeling in the plot, but, alas, she doesn't.

This is one of those novels where the quality of the writing is good, the characters are there, but then nothing is really done with them. We learn about their past, and their dreams, but then nothing is brought to a satisfactory conclusion. There is no big dramatic ending or plot twist.

The opening of each chapter is prefaced by quotes from old school books on ballroom dancing etiquette and the whole story is infused with dance. Those who enjoy ballroom dancing and can see how the steps in each dance can mirror life might find Ballroom a more satisfying novel than I did.

If you visit Alice Simpson's website you will see that Ballroom began as an Artist Book and you can see a picture of the cover and one of the exquisite watercolors: www.alicesimpson.com/artist-books/directory/ballroom.html In fact, I am much more impressed and in awe of her art work than this novel.

Disclosure: I received an advanced reading copy of this book from the publisher and TLC for review purposes.
http://tlcbooktours.com ( )

A portrait of six dancers, denizens of old, faded NYC ballrooms that were so popular in the twenties - forties. Some interesting, complicated characters, but some that just don't ring true enough - too perfect. The most enjoyable parts are the quotations at the beginning of each chapter from 1880s etiquette manuals. I might try and track those down and read them next! ( )

The reader moves onto the floor with great excitement, turning the initial pages of a debut novel, heartbeat slightly accelerated, hopes and expectations heightened. It is a dance: this movement between reader and story. Alice Simpson's Ballroom takes that connection seriously.

The very structure of the novel mirrors the movements on a dance floor of the ballroom, not in a competitive event in which a couple would remain in each other's company for the entire event, but a public venue, one in which dancers must shift partners as time passes.

And, so, the focus of the narrative shifts, from partner to partner, from character to character. Readers must step quickly, move from one set of arms to another comfortably. Those readers who would prefer a broader, over-arching narrative arc -- a single, devoted narrator/partner -- may find these shifts frustrating, but a single voice would not suit a story which is rooted in constant movement. The form is a perfect reflection of the story.

Readers spend only a few pages with one character before the perspective shifts to another character, though the reader's experiences with each character do intensify as, after being introduced and through repeated encounters, the reader can more completely understand the dance partners, as the everyday details are compounded by history and memories, though relayed with a light touch.

The author's skill at depicting heavy subject matter with a gentle hand is remarkable. Indeed, one could view ballroom dancing as an art form which presents a distinct impression of decorum and beauty, an impressive veneer obscuring something else entirely which lurks beneath the surface. Partners may exhibit a well-rehearsed impression of passion and connection, even if the only harmonious element between them is their shared desire to dance well. In Ballroom, the characters are presented impeccably, and their steps accomplished and learned, but beneath the surface they embody many contradictions.

The glamour and intensity of dance partners mirrors the idea that every reader has a perfect book awaiting them, every dancer the perfect partner. A scan of the dance floor, might lead one to believe that there are some ideal partnerships gliding across the floor. But the majority of the dancers in Ballroom are as flawed and damaged as the rest of us. They may be more impeccably dressed and coiffed, but they are as often lonely and yearning, hesitant and fearful, as they are connected and thriving, assured and successful.

"She can't explain or quite understand what it is that is special about dancing with Harry. When he opens his arms to her, he is so sure, the way he holds her, not too hard, not too soft. Like coming home. Where she belongs. The way he moves her. They are a part of the music. Their bodies fit together, move like one person. Perfect. The way a man and a woman must feel, she thinks, when they are in love. He makes her feel beautiful, too, like when he assures her that someday she will be good enough to be a professional dancer. Harry must know, because he is the best dancer, the best teacher, a girl could have, patient and gentle. She is lucky that he believes in her. That is how she feels outside his door."

Harry has lived four floors above the Rodriguez family since before Maria was born, but when she grew old enough to begin taking dance lessons on Friday evenings, Harry's dreams about/for her, and Maria's dreams, too, crystallize and form a pattern like dance steps drawn across a tiled floor.

The characters in Ballroom do crave love, and sometimes romantic love, even though they often (like Maria) cannot clearly articulate what that means, neither to explain it or understand it. But ultimately what they crave is the sense of partnership that is an integral part of ballroom dancing.

The nature of true partnership is a theme which Alice Simpson's work explores in a variety of situations. Characters in her debut reach out and retract, step forward and back; they may make mis-steps, but they recognize the value of taking a bow with a flourish. Individuals may, like Gabriel, be married, or like Sarah, have been married multiple times, but they do not inhabit the role of partner in these capacities; they step onto the ballroom floor hoping for a true connection there which they lack in their everyday lives.

Stylistically, Alice Simpson frames her work with a series of quotes from classic references on ballroom dancing, but notably the excerpts often apply to the study of relationships as well as they apply to dancing.

The work concludes with a Ballroom Bibliography, but the author is clearly just as fascinated by the dances between partners off the ballroom floor; she is preoccupied by the footwork of human relationships, and Ballroom will perhaps appeal more to readers who have an interest in human mis-steps than in perfectly executed dance routines.

Ballroom is stylistically deft and structurally impressive, but the reader might be uncomfortable with the reality which lurks beneath the beautiful presentation. Alice Simpson is not inviting the reader to attend a performance and admire from a distance; the reader must take to the floor and might well be as breathless from a broken heart as from an invigorating number.

This review originally appeared here, on BuriedInPrint. ( )

My husband dances like he's a teenager at a junior high dance: hands planted firmly on a girl's tush, rocking back and forth on his feet, sometimes to the beat and other times not so much. Before we got married, wanting to ensure that our first dance at the reception wasn't quite so lacking in class, I roped him into attending a dance class or two and I went to more than that myself. In all honesty, it didn't make much of a difference (for either of us) as he still stepped on my feet and I promptly fled to dance with my dad. But I've always been impressed with people who do dance beautifully, even if I didn't marry someone who could. So I was intrigued by Alice Simpson's debut novel, Ballroom, about a group of people who all dance at the Ballroom and whose lives cross each other in this very rarified place.

Told through the eyes of six different dancers, this novel tells of their hopes and dreams and the way in which the Ballroom seems, for so many of them, to be the means to achieving their hearts' desires. Harry Korn is a man in his late sixties. He lives alone and occasionally takes on dance students. He has watched Maria grow up just outside his window and when she was small he taught her to dance. Now that she's a young adult, he has plans to marry her and take her to Argentina to compete after she finishes college. Maria doesn't really believe Harry, not that he shares his desire to marry her with her. Despite the fact that she dances competitively and wins with her partner Angel, she still sneaks off to Harry's apartment every Friday for a lesson with the older man and she humors him when he asks her to tell him that she loves him. Sarah Dreyfuss is almost forty, thrice divorced, and she is looking for love at the Ballroom. She's asked Harry to teach her privately so that she can attract the attention of the debonair Gabriel, who only dances with the smoothest dancers. Gabriel dances to escape from his own unhappy marriage but he doesn't share this information with any of the women he dances with. Since he is already married, Sarah has no chance. Joseph, however, wants to get married and have a family even if he's put it off rather late. He thinks that Sarah would be ideal except that when he dances and talks with her, he doesn't really want her; he wants his own idealized version of her.

Each of these people come together at the Ballroom as a place out of time to escape their otherwise circumscribed and small lives. They are, for the most part, sad and lonely people who only have superficial relationships with the other regulars at the Ballroom. Their connections to each other remain on the dance floor where their movements are stylized and prescribed. When they leave the dance and come away from the rush and excitement, they return to their banal wallflower lives, lived on the periphery of everyone else's story. They start the novel as strangers and even though they might learn a bit about the others, they end the novel as strangers too, never having made the connections they so wanted or realized any of the dreams they had. Simpson's descriptive passages are gorgeously visual and paint a vivid picture for the reader but if the physical is very well described, the characters themselves are a bit flat and quite a few of them are unlikable. The chapters are brief and each is narrated by one of the major characters, but because of the characters' superficial relationships to each other, this narrational merry-go-round leads to a lack of cohesion in the overall story itself. The glamorous fantasy of the Ballroom is an illusion, the reality is actually fairly decrepit and tired and this seemed true of the majority of the characters as well. I wanted to love this novel, to have it capture the magic of dance and of life, but it didn't quite get there for me. ( )