In Ian Gouge’s eclectic new collection, Dust, dancing, many of the protagonists find themselves thwarted: by ambition, by love, by old age. They experience unavoidable setbacks and occasional victories: the man tattooing his life history on his back; the woman fantasising about a Hollywood film star; the man fired from his job; the actress believing she is destined to be ‘a Bond Girl’; the policewoman making a gruesome discovery. We share the pleasure and pain associated with their various journeys, the resonance of our own experience adding layers to our reading.
Gouge’s work has been compared to Henry James, Sally Rooney, Virginia Woolf and Ernest Hemingway. Dust, dancing is his fourth collection of short stories.
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