Dancing In The Dark
  • Published: 1 November 2006
  • ISBN: 9780099488873
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 224
  • RRP: $24.99

Dancing In The Dark

Formats & editions
EBook
1 Dec 2010
Paperback
1 Nov 2006
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A brilliant and affecting novel based on the tragic life of a hero of American entertainment.

'The funniest man I ever saw, and the saddest man I ever knew.' This is how W.C. Fields described Bert Williams, the highest-paid entertainer in America in his heyday and someone who counted the King of England and Buster Keaton among his fans.

Born in the Bahamas, he moved to California with his family. Too poor to attend Stanford University, he took to life on the stage with his friend George Walker. Together they played lumber camps and mining towns until they eventually made the agonising decision to 'play the coon'. Off-stage, Williams was a tall, light-skinned man with marked poise and dignity; on-stage he now became a shuffling, inept 'nigger' who wore blackface make-up. As the new century dawned they were headlining on Broadway. But the mask was beginning to overwhelm Williams and he sank into bouts of melancholia and heavy drinking, unable to escape the blackface his public demanded.
  • Published: 1 November 2006
  • ISBN: 9780099488873
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 224
  • RRP: $24.99
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About the author

Caryl Phillips

Caryl Phillips is the author of numerous acclaimed works of fiction and non-fiction, including the novels Crossing the River (shortlisted for the Booker Prize 1993) and A Distant Shore (winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize 2004). Phillips has won the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the PEN Open Book Award and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, as well as being named the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 1992 and one of the Granta Best of Young British Writers 1993. He has also written for television, radio, theatre and film.

portrait photo of Caryl Phillips

Also by Caryl Phillips

The Lost Child
A View of the Empire at Sunset
Colour Me English
Higher Ground
In the Falling Snow
Cambridge
The Nature of Blood
See all

Praise for Dancing In The Dark

It is a lovely novel, psychologically astute and rich in period detail, and the best thing Caryl Phillips has written - Max Davidson, Sunday Telegraph

Phillips has brilliantly resurrected a bitter-sweet life... Without a doubt Phillips' most accomplished novel

Time Out

This is a tragic story with not a word wasted, raised to an elegiac level by Phillips's supple, controlled prose

Sunday Independent

A subtle and poignant novel... A fine and beautifully nuanced performance

Sunday Times

Caryl Philips novel tells [Walker and William's story] with sensitivity and eloquence. He is a consummate storyteller...

Observer

A compassionate portrait of an enigmatic figure... Written with Phillips's trademark understated elegance

The Times
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