Introduction by Susan Wyndham
‘She’s going now,’ said Henry Watter if he said anything at all. Or, ‘It’s a tricky place, the world. You’ve got to be sharp to manage it.’ ‘Leave her be. She’ll be back,’ said Mrs Watter. ‘This is her home. She knows that.’
Lark Watter had always planned to run away from her stifling suburban life in 1960s Sydney. At university she encounters an American, Tom, and with him the promise of escape. Following Tom to the other side of the world by freighter is a journey to freedom—but the adventure Lark has embarked on isn’t quite what she had anticipated. Not on the way there, and certainly not in New York…
A picaresque journey across the high seas and through the extremes of the ’60s, Dancing on Coral was Glenda Adams’ second novel and established her international reputation.
This new edition comes with an introduction by Susan Wyndham.
‘A comic epic and sharp satire…a voyage of liberation.’
‘An ebullient comedy…wonderfully satisfying and enriching.’
‘A wicked and witty novel.’
‘Exudes elegant malice.’
‘Would that all novelists today were so spry.’
‘With wry humour and a light hand, Adams tells the story of a young woman who, like the author in the 1960s, makes the journey by cargo boat from Sydney to an expatriate life in New York. The eponymous dancing on coral occurs in mid-ocean and is closely followed by a betrayal whose shadow hangs over the rest of the novel.’