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Blues Dancing
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Blues Dancing Paperback - 2005

by Diane McKinney-Whetstone

Verdi, daughter of a Southern preacher, comes to Philadelphia in the 1970s and enrolls at the university. She meets Johnson, a poor, irresistible and militant student who teaches her about many things -- including how to love heroin. Verdi is rescued by a professor who falls in love with her. Twenty years later, Johnson reenters Verdi's life.


Summary

Verdi and Rowe have been living a comfortable existence for the past twenty years. She was the pampered daughter of a prosperous rural preacher when she came to Philadelphia in the seventies -- and he was a conservative professor at the university she was attending, the man who rescued Verdi from an ugly addiction, and left his sophisticated wife for her when he fell in love with the confused young southern girl. It was another student, a poor and militant city boy named Johnson, who awakened Verdi's passionate heart and taught her to love heroin. But Johnson was an obsession Verdi closed her eyes to but never got over, and now he has come back into her life -- rekindling with one look the fire that still smolders in the ashes of the past, sending them both skidding dangerously and uncontrollably toward the mad desires of their youth.

From the publisher

"McKinney-Whetstone uses her gift for language to weave a love story that spans more than twenty years and three lives. . . . Blues Dancing is a novel well worth curling up with a long winter's night." --Essence

From acclaimed writer Diane McKinney-Whetstone, a richly spun tale of love and passion, betrayal, redemption, and faith, set in contemporary Philadelphia.

My aunt says if you smell butter on a foggy night you're getting ready to fall in love.

For the last twenty years, the beautiful Verdi Mae has led a comfortable life with Rowe, the conservative professor who rescued her from addiction when she was an undergrad. But her world is about to shift when the smell of butter lingers in the air and Johnson--the boy from the back streets of Philadelphia who pulled her into the fire of passion and all the shadows cast from it--returns to town.

In "this story of self-discovery that moves seamlessly between the early 1970s and early 1990s" (Publishers Weekly, starred review), McKinney-Whetstone takes readers into a world of erotic love, drugs, and political activism, and beautifully illustrates the struggle to reconcile passion with accountability and the redemptive powers of love's rediscovery.

This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

First line

THIS NIGHT AIR was filled with low-hanging clouds.

From the rear cover

My aunt says if you smell butter on a foggy night you're getting ready to fall in love.

For the last twenty years, the beautiful Verdi Mae has led a comfortable life with Rowe, the conservative professor who rescued her from addiction when she was an undergrad. But her world is about to shift when the smell of butter lingers in the air and Johnson -- the boy from the back streets of Philadelphia who pulled her into the fire of passion and all the shadows cast from it -- returns to town.

In "this story of self-discovery that moves seamlessly between the early 1970s and early 1990s" (Publishers Weekly starred review), acclaimed writer Diane McKinney-Whetstone takes readers into a world of erotic love, drugs, and political activism, and beautifully illustrates the struggle to reconcile passion with accountability and the redemptive powers of love's rediscovery.

This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

Details

  • Title Blues Dancing
  • Author Diane McKinney-Whetstone
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition First Edition
  • Pages 336
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Harper Perennial, New York, New York, U.S.A.
  • Date 2005-04-01
  • ISBN 9780060799069 / 0060799064
  • Weight 0.8 lbs (0.36 kg)
  • Dimensions 8 x 5.3 x 0.8 in (20.32 x 13.46 x 2.03 cm)
  • Themes
    • Cultural Region: Mid-Atlantic
    • Demographic Orientation: Urban
    • Ethnic Orientation: African American
    • Geographic Orientation: Pennsylvania
    • Locality: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
    • Sex & Gender: Feminine
  • Library of Congress subjects Philadelphia (Pa.), African American women
  • Dewey Decimal Code FIC
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