cover image Dance for the Moon

Dance for the Moon

Rebecca Burns. Random House (UK), $0 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-224-02367-2

The profound effort to make whole a spirit that war has shattered provides this novel by a young British poet with such immediacy that its setting and chronologythe English countryside just after World War Iand its supposedly jejune psychological inquiries have universal relevance. Shell-shocked and withdrawn, David Goodchild is taken by his mother to a sanatorium run by American psychiatrist Clive Penn, whose wife Mary is acquainted with David's poetry and instantly forms an attachment to its creator. Compassionate and principled, Clive takes risks for his patients and is deeply involved in their recovery. After nearly a year of recalling his dreams for the doctor and transforming them into poetry, David is much improved; then he and Mary succumb to their longing for each other. The doctor, suspicious, turns on David with insidious accusations, which the younger man's fragile ego and tenuous grasp of sanity are unable to withstand. Beautifully written, this is a book whose exploration of human emotions is as moving as its evocation of a frightened man. (March 1)