Leading the Dance

Secrets and their consequences run deep through Sarah Salway's short stories in this haunting and sharply written collection. A bored housewife welcomes the nomadic painter of family pets into her home and commissions a portrait of her fridge; a schoolboy learns how to survive when his gang turns against him; a man's life is turned around when he hears his wife make a new noise in bed, and in the title story, a dance between husband and wife at a school ceilidh turns into a battle for survival. This is domestic life turned on its head, with Salway's witty and economic prose capturing the private moments of transformation by some very different characters on the edge.