Here at the End of the World We Learn to Dance
On sale
3rd April 2008
Price: £7.99
In a cave set back from the ocean, on the coast of New Zealand, Louise and Schmidt hide along with two local boys frightened of being called up to fight in the Great War. But the sensual rhythm of the tango lessons which Schmidt teaches on that sandy cave floor will have devastating consequences for all of them.
Two generations later, Schmidt’s fiery granddaughter Rosa, running an Argentine restaurant, captivates a young man with the same sultry music that inspired seduction and deception so many years before.
Two generations later, Schmidt’s fiery granddaughter Rosa, running an Argentine restaurant, captivates a young man with the same sultry music that inspired seduction and deception so many years before.
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Reviews
The details of this wild and lonely setting are wonderfully conveyed, and the whole episode . . . has the same magical surreal quality as Matilda's flights of fancy in 'Mister Pip'
Jones -- author of Mister Pip -- braids these two wistful affairs into an affecting meditation of family, duty and the awkward catchment of love
'It sounds so light-hearted - a story about dance and love - and yet it is also so ineffably sad, just like the tango itself, heartbreaking and exhilarating. In fact, Jones has solved something that's notoriously difficult: how to write about music so that the words themselves express its character . . . a skillfully constructed book, gracefully traversing huge distances in time and geography, as well as character. It's very rich, but never hard work.'
'Much like a tango, this novel goes forward and backwards in stops and starts, is sensual,has passion and tells a story of love'