MARC Record from marc_columbia

LEADER: 03318fam a2200349 a 4500
001 1606123
005 20220608195411.0
008 940908s1995 lau s000 1 eng
010 $a 94037394
020 $a0807119857 (alk. paper) :$c$22.95
035 $a(OCoLC)31207602
035 $a(OCoLC)ocm31207602
035 $9AKL2132CU
035 $a(NNC)1606123
035 $a1606123
040 $aDLC$cDLC$dDLC$dOrLoB
050 00 $aPS3569.U3593$bT56 1995
082 00 $a813/.54$220
100 1 $aSullivan, Walter,$d1924-2006.$0http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n81128241
245 12 $aA time to dance /$ca novel by Walter Sullivan.
260 $aBaton Rouge :$bLouisiana State University Press,$c1995.
300 $a195 pages ;$c23 cm
336 $atext$btxt$2rdacontent
337 $aunmediated$bn$2rdamedia
520 $aThis marvelous novel chronicles the year leading up to the sixtieth wedding anniversary of Max and Bunnie Howard, a failed novelist and his academic wife, a couple of aging bohemians who never grew up. Theirs, we quickly learn, was a marriage characterized by heavy drinking, mutual infidelities, and riotous parties in the genteel demi-monde of Nashville.
520 8 $aBut when Bunnie suffers a stroke, their days of feckless independence are over, and it is their good-natured and long-suffering nephew Julien who finds himself in charge, trying to save the couple - especially Max - from their worst impulses.
520 8 $aWith Bunnie still in the hospital, Julien becomes involved with Shannon, a strong-willed nurse seeking redemption from the tragic mistakes of her own harrowing past, and the younger couple's struggle to build a responsible relationship seems in absolute counterpoint to Max and Bunnie's history.
520 8 $aBack home, Max and his invalid wife muddle through the year, beset by doctors, irascible housemaids, and the vicissitudes of their own flesh, vicissitudes that sometimes evolve into sheer slapstick. Bunnie's attempt to share Max's bed requires the intervention of paramedics. Max tries to drive to the cemetery to visit the grave of a literary and romantic rival and finds himself involved in a wild encounter with truckers and police.
520 8 $aHow can the Howards make sense of a life that suddenly seems to have passed with such bewildering haste and left them blinking and reeling in its wake? Bunnie tries by embarking on a novel, innocently plagiarizing scenes and lines from authors as diverse as Shakespeare and Joyce. Max drinks, reflecting tipsily upon his various shortcomings, as a husband, as a novelist, as a man.
520 8 $aFor both, images of botched seductions and old lovers loom through a fog of memory and confusion, and what becomes clear is the pathos of their doomed search for a chimera of perfect love.
520 8 $aBy turns comic and heartbreaking, A Time to Dance moves unerringly toward its conclusion at Max and Bunnie's anniversary celebration. By then what we come to recognize in Max and Bunnie is neither their recklessness nor their betrayals but their sweetness, the gallantry of their pursuit of more than life offers, and their deep and abiding love for each other. A Time to Dance is a novel that presents the human condition with humor, compassion, and hope.
852 00 $boff,glx$hPS3569.U3593$iT56 1995