Dancing Naked at the Edge of Dawn

A friend going through a divorce loaned me this one. It's kind of a self-help book disguised as a novel. Not really my thing, but I can see how it would be useful and affirming for someone in her position.

Kris Radish writes books about women empowering women. Some would call it chick lit and I suppose it’s that too.
In this book, Meg comes home and hears noises from upstairs when nobody should be home. Instead of leaving or calling the police, she sneaks up the stairs and sees her husband in bed with another woman. Instead of confrontation, she chooses to leave the house. She finds a friend, falls apart and then decides to throw her husband out. For months she wallows in her grief and self-pity ignoring advice from friends and strangers alike as she tries to find strength in herself and her choices. She finally realizes that she wasn’t that happy in her marriage and didn’t have the sort of life she thought she would when she was young.
Kris Radish spends a lot of time in each of her books developing her characters and their back-story so that when they give advice, the reader knows where they are coming from and why they feel the way they do.
As good as it was and as much as I enjoy her writing, I found that around the ¾ point, I wanted her to wrap things up. It seemed that the message was becoming redundant, saying the same thing over and over. Of course, that may have been her point - that we sometimes need to hear the same things over and over before we listen.
I still look forward to reading more of her books. ( )

Cliche-ridden, self-pitying...one of the few books I couldn't bring myself to finish. ( )

I read this novel for an 'I'll Read Yours if You Read Mine' challenge. I was challenged to read it because I don't like chick lit. The result is that I still don't, and I didn't find this book as empowering as it tries to be, but I'm still glad gave the genre a try.

This is the story of Meg, a middle-aged, middle-class American suburban wife and mother whose life undergoes a series of drastic changes after she watches her husband Bob having an affair with another woman. The event leaves Meg broken and she goes into a lot of detailed whining, but as the narrative progresses it seems to be the best thing that's ever happened to her, causing her to escape the life that has made her so unhappy and start a new one more in tune with her passions and friendships. Meg finds solace in a multitude of strong, wise women who are always ready to listen and reply with inspiring metaphors and anecdotes. These women and Meg's friendships with them are lovely but unreal - wonderful as they are, the way they pop up wherever Meg needs them seems contrived.

In fact, given the people and influences in Meg's life, I couldn't understand why she'd married Bob in the first place or why she'd allowed herself to become so unhappy. Each flashback chapter shows a feminist influence in Meg's life, but none of these seem to have had much impact on her. She encounters several women whose stories show that marriage (at least in this society) is bad for women, turning them into unhappy servants of their husbands and children and reducing their aspirations to daydreams. At one point, she admits that she doesn’t know of any happy marriages except her grandparents’. Other characters encourage Meg to follow her passions rather than submit to social pressures. And yet she still marries Bob at 20. I don't think it's impossible for something like this to occur, but given the circumstances, I found myself waiting for an explanation, a glimpse of Meg and Bob’s early relationship. I felt Radish owed it to the reader, but it never came.

I was also left wondering why Meg, a well-educated woman with so many strong, outspoken women in her life, never seems to have talked to her husband about her unhappiness and tried to work things out, either before or after learning about his affairs. Despite the novel’s strong feminist tones, the conclusion it offers is that women are still the weaker sex. They may have the strength to leave their husbands and stay single, but they don’t have the strength to face the men in their lives and confront the problem of sexism. They can escape, but they can’t fight. If they’re lucky, they will find kind men with egalitarian sensibilities who will not pose a threat. Or they can just live with other women, and avoid men.

Divorce seems the only solution posed for an unhappy marriage then, because it’s always going to be unhappy. Women must find solace in each other, or in themselves. But on the whole, this feels like a fantasy. There are mythical women like Elizabeth, Linda, Dr Carol Kimbal – goddess-like in their wisdom, strength and beauty. There are magical places – Elizabeth’s apartment, Mexico, Meg’s new apartment. There are New Age ideas and practices throughout and the ending is a lovely dream of success. To me, all the wonderful things the novel celebrates feel unreal, a New Age fantasy. In contrast, there's a 'real world' where men like Bob are still in control and that fantasy falls flat. I wanted the novel to solidify into a biting feminist tract or just veer off into a thrilling reckless fantasy where Meg parties and has wild affairs on gorgeous Mexican beaches. Unfortunately, it falls somewhere in the middle, trying to impart serious messages about empowerment in a way that feels too magical to be true.

Nevertheless, I still found aspects of the novel inspiring, even if I don’t agree with the way Radish has expressed them. The voracious appetite for change is so exciting, the suggestion of being happy while staying single is both calming and thrilling. I also valued this perspective on middle-aged women in suburban middle-class America - a culture far from my own. It’s clearly something that speaks to them, and to women elsewhere. And I too would love to do some of the things Meg does as she changes her life. For me this novel could work as an inspiring fantasy, but not much more. ( )

This is the type of book you send to all your friends. I sent it to my best friend for her birthday. Lucky for me I still have a few more that I haven't read and she just published a new one!!!! Keep them coming Kris! ( )