re:mote voices

Title: Come Dance With Me
Author: Russell Hoban
Publisher: Bloomsbury

Christabel Alderton and Elias Newman meet at an exhibition of symbolist paintings. Christabel is sucked into a painting by Odilon Redon, that of The Cyclops – sucked in and overwhelmed. Elias is intrigued by her reaction to the painting, and when he approaches her she invites him to come dance with her – specifically quoting in German from a ballad about the Erlking’s daughter. Thus Hoban’s latest weirdoes and potential lovers meet.

Christabel Alderton is in her 50’s, the lead singer of a moderately successful Goth Rock band called Mobile Mortuary. Elias Newman is a failed poet who has instead relied on his career as a diabetologist. From the start there are numerous coincidences, little things that suggest that it was inevitable that they would meet. However, since the age of 13 people around Christabel have died, and in the last 40 years she has left a trail of dead lovers and would be lovers. Fearful that Elias will be the latest she is reluctant to get involved, seduced by her mystery he is convinced that what ever is going on he is the man to sort it.

Come Dance With Me was published in hardback at the start of last year, so it pre-dates Linger Awhile which went straight to over-sized paperback at the start of the year. This paperback edition of Come Dance With Me has just been published in the last few months, and continues the stream of novels that Hoban has written in recent years. Connecting into the Angelica’s Grotto, Bat Tattoo and Amaryllis Night And Day sequence – with Elias being a friend of Peter Diggs, meeting him and Amaryllis shortly after his first encounter with Christabel.

Like much of Hoban’s work Come Dance With Me is at least primarily set in London, revolves around the central couple, and juggles melancholic wit with quirky weirdoes and a certain mystery. The world of a rock musician is a slight departure from the artists and writers who usually crop up, desperate for inspiration – but to a degree Elias fulfils that role, with Christabel being the alluring dark lady, the back stage, the concert hall and the rehearsal room just being a change of scenery.

To a degree Come Dance With Me is a subdued novel, filled with remembered death, more so than the great hopping thing that dwells within Linger Awhile – Come Dance With Me fitting well with those recent novels, while Linger Awhile goes back to an earlier style.