My people's waltz

by Dale Ray Phillips

Richard is the winning and irrepressible narrator of this novel in stories. We follow Richard's chaotic childhood informed by his parents' passionate and rocky marriage, his mother's nervous breakdowns, his traveling salesman father's erratic attempts to earn his mother's love again, and their eventual divorce, through Richard's own trials with the women in his life. Richard is like a traveler or pilgrim, moving from Haw River, North Carolina, to Arkansas to the Texas Gulf Coast and finally back to North Carolina, as he and his people - they drink hard, dance in their kitchens, lie and cheat - wrestle with their love and with their often inharmonious natures. In the end the narrator struggles to straighten out some small piece of his heart's crooked essence. My Peoples Waltz sadly celebrates the decisions we make to get on with the business of living.