Peter Boal

I requested this book as an Early Reviewer and was quite pleased to receive it as I too grew up in Bedford, albeit 20 years earlier. And I suppose Bedford has changed; after all Martha Stewart now lives there. Nevertheless, there were mansions then, and rich people, but I grew very tired of his generalizations about the town and its residents, and his continued emphasis on wealth. For example: "The money crowd was small at Fox Lane [my high school], but they found each other by their BMWs . . ." I wonder how he knows, given that he went to Rippowam (yes, a ritzy private school).

This is all carping, and feels ungenerous, but it does capture the annoyance I felt. Some scrupulous editing would have helped greatly. I realize it was written as a series of short stories, which is fine, but they should have been rearranged to cut out the repetition and to make the whole book less disjointed. And, as many reviewers have written, we all wanted to hear more about dance. The focus on the difficulties of growing up with an alcoholic father is understandable - it shaped his life. But how did dance, which after all began when he was just nine? Was it an escape? Was the control required the opposite of what he witnessed each night with his father?

I watched some short videos of Boal's dancing and it was exquisite. I just wish his writing could have measured up.… (lisätietoja)