I Was Dancing.

by Edwin O'Connor

As commented on by the New York Daily News: " Burgess Meredith gives an endearing, funny and skillful performance as a seventy-year-old star hoofer who has come to the end of the road and headed home Or to what he thinks is home, his son's house. He has been here a year and the welcome has worn thin for he was never much of a parent, what with running out on his wife and infant son to hoof it alone around the globe. So his ungrateful boy, age thirty-eight at the moment, wants to pry him out of his comfortable top-floor bedroom and lodge him comfortably in Smiling Valley, a home for senior citizens. Meredith, a spry fellow given to subconscious dance steps and waltzing when he is alone, doesn't want to go to Smiling Valley. He likes it where he is and besides, his sister, Pert Kelton, the gabbiest Irishwoman alive, is already a resident of Smiling Valley and he can't stand her. Meredith has a scheme to halt the ouster by faking a heart attack and softening up his son. He confides it to his cronies, who are an odd lot. One, David Doyle, is an unlicensed doctor with a busy practice among strange cases, like a woman who got shorter and shorter until she died. Another is an affable priest who wanted to be a jockey. The third, Eli Mintz, is an utterly mournful man, and his account of how a friend died of a blood clot after playing golf is one of the funniest soliloquies in the play."

Paperback

First published January 1, 1964

About the author

Edwin O'Connor was an American journalist, novelist, and radio commentator who won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1962 for his novel The Edge of Sadness (1961). His ancestry was Irish, and his novels concerned the Irish-American experience and often dealt with the lives of politicians and priests.

Reviews

[Jennifer Morefield · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting story of an old man taking advantage of his son. He is in need of a home and goes to sponge off of his son. He was rarely home as a father. I have found it fascinating to read a story where someone who is wonderful (son) torn between his wants and his duty. The old guy is a vaudeville actor. He has lots of tricks up his sleeve to try to get his son to provide him w/a home and not send him to the retirement home. This book has really made me think about family relationships. A good read.

[Ginny Thurston · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was interested in this book initially....the main character and his cronies were funny and quirky, but as the book progressed, I got fed up with Daniel Considine...his whining and selfishness really began to grate on my nerves. I am a performer, and it made it sound like we are all fakes and self-absorbed. I kept waiting for Daniel to redeem himself, but he never did. I can see how this would give a chance for some great acting for some older actors; and, therefore, would be better as a play. As it was....very hard to get to the end and disappointed when I got there.

[Annette Kane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the novel, not the acting edition which is the only one Goodreads could find. I did think it would make a good play so I’m not surprised there’s a dramatisation of it. Nearly a five star book.

[Lou · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, read this years ago in an old READER'S DIGEST CONDENSED BOOK version, but the memory still lingers. Waltzing Daniel Considine, an old vaudevillian, lapses back into his son's life after a 20 year absence. Now, a year later, the son wants him to go, and Daniel doesn't want to. There's a lot of humor here, a lot of humanity, but some tough decisions, too. Daniel's a born con man and there lies his charm. But will it prevail against his son's wishes? Read it and see.

[Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Moving my way through the Edwin O'Connor catalog.

This edition came out of the storage facility at the St. Clair County Library in Port Huron--not much interest anymore, but his books were best-sellers back in the 1960s.

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slow but suspenseful plot that surmounted to a good ending.

[Eileen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cute at first, really annoying to read after a while. I stopped reading halfway through.