Dancing in the Dark

by Joan Barfoot

Edna Cormick, forty-three, is incarcerated in a mental hospital for murdering her husband. For twenty years, Edna escaped the world by devoting herself to the health and welfare of her husband and home, so when she learns he’s been having an affair, her sense of betrayal is devastating and literally maddening. And so she sits, silently filling notebooks, trying to find where and how her life went wrong. Dancing in the Dark is a tightly woven psychological novel, which explores the idea that madness is not necessarily self-destructive, and may lead to a kind of wisdom.

Genres: Fiction, Canada, Mental Health

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Joan Barfoot is an award-winning novelist whose work has been compared internationally with that of Anne Tyler, Carol Shields, Margaret Drabble and Margaret Atwood. Her novels include Luck in 2005, nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, as well as Abra, which won the Books in Canada first novels award, Dancing in the Dark, which became an award-winning Canadian entry in the Cannes and Toronto Film Festivals, Duet for Three, Family News, Plain Jane, Charlotte and Claudia Keeping in Touch, Some Things About Flying, and Getting Over Edgar. Her 2001 novel, Critical Injuries, was longlisted for the 2002 Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the 2001 Trillium Book Award. In 1992 she was given the Marian Engel Award. Also a journalist during much of her career, she lives in London, Ontario, Canada.

Reviews

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the haunting story of a woman whose self worth centers around her husband. Edna is crippled by insecurities and social awkwardness during her childhood and adolescence, and ultimately finds a place to belong when she and Harry marry following college. For twenty years, she lives to serve Harry's every need, seeking the impossibility of perfection throughout their marriage. She rarely expresses any desire or need of her own, and swallows the disappointment of not being able to bear a child. Harry commits a betrayal that totally obliterates Edna's identity, and leads to an act that results in dire consequences. Edna records her story in a journal following hospitalization in a psychiatric unit. Joan Barfoot is masterful in portraying Edna's world where the opinions of others define her, and ultimately her safe place is destroyed forever.

[Jayne Charles · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book suffered, from my point of view at least, from the fact that I read it immediately after one of the best books I have ever read, and the effect was like switching the television over from an action packed comedy film to a documentary on existentialism. It was faultlessly written, though, and the sort of book that would reveal more hidden meaning on each subsequent reading.

It concerns Edna, a dedicated housewife who murdered her husband after he had an affair (no spoilers here, it's all on the back cover), and clearly the book's task would be to illustrate how this came to be, given that many men have affairs but their wives do not become murderers as a result. What emerged was a picture of obsessive housekeeping, limited ambition, and the idea of marriage as a very formal contract where the keeping of an immaculate house brings very specific guarantees. I note the author is a known feminist writer and assume that there is a feminist agenda at work here. Fair enough, but in my experience it isn't men who insist on houses being immaculate all the time, it is women themselves: they do it because their friends will bitch about them if they don't, and because their mothers have brought them up to be obsessively clean. Anyone who has ever watched Wife Swap on TV will know that the easiest way for a wife to land a low blow on her counterpart at the table meeting is to say her house is filthy. They do it every week. So overall it was a good, cerebral read, not a page turner, but thought-provoking even if I wasn't totally convinced by the message.

[Mikeal · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book in the library back in high school and the cover picture caught my attention. It reminded me of one of the things I associate with the 1950's. Also, impressions of the 1950's stereotypes started running through my mind and while that was going on I noticed how simple and neat the cover picture was and then the saying that if something seems too perfect it probably isn't filled my thoughts. That's all it took for me to open this book and I'm glad I did. The structured thoughts of "the housewife" (as I like to call her) in the story is fascinating and disturbing but precisely written. Being male and younger when I read this allows me to truthfully say that being privvy to a woman's (even though fictional) was new and somehow alluring. This fact combined along with the strange and often rash thinking of "the housewife" were enough to keep me entertained until the end of the book.

[Julielenore · Rating 2 out of 5]

Edna is obsessed with everything being neat, tidy and perfect. As long as she is a perfect housewife, following the instructions set out for her in her mother's women's magazines she feels that her husband will always love her. She is a quiet, meek and doting wife. Her husband becomes bored with his almost mute wife and has an affair. Edna's perfect world is shattered.
This book dragged. I didn't feel that sorry for Edna. I wanted to shake her.

[Elaine Cougler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dancing in the Dark by London, Ontario, author Joan Barfoot whom I heard speak early in her career. An intriguing character exposition based on a woman who defines her life through caring for her home and husband only to learn of her husband's infidelity. This knowledge is the catalyst to her murdering him. The book continues with an exposition of just what happens to her after this act. A provocative, insightful book, skillfully drawn.

[Slurry222 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Haunting.

[mica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started this book fairly excited for it, but, in the end, felt somewhat let down. Maybe it was built up too much for me?

The protagonist in Dancing in the Dark, Edna, is a woman who has very few interests or ambitions beyond ensuring that things are in perfect order - and about that, she is obsessive. She doesn't really know herself, except she wants love and affection from a man, and ergo, when she meets the first guy who shows her any interest, she is immediately taken by him, and conforms her self to satisfy his needs. We are told this, from her perspective, in far less blunt terms (and she may or may not be an honest narrator - but she doesn't contradict herself, so I assume she is meant to be honest, but, of course, biased).

The story, told via her notebooks, now that she is in an asylum, after murdering her husband upon the discovery of his affair (this is not a spoiler - it is one of the first things we learn from her), is an exploration of her character and her feelings.

I think this book's underlying message is that her lack of emotional needs and obsessive cleanliness made her the perfect housewife, but that those same qualities were what led her to react so extremely to her husband's affair.

I can't say I particularly empathized with her husband (I didn't think he deserved to be murdered for an affair, obviously, but he's a pretty shitty partner throughout), but I did want a little more exploration of his character, oddly. I think there's something to be said about how attracted he was to a woman who was essentially his blank slate, and his ensuing boredom with her. His feelings on women, and behavior towards women could be flushed out.

While I did empathize with Edna, I found it bit difficult to do so, particularly, because beyond her preoccupation with ensuring that she keeps everything in perfect order (nothing out of place, everything in up to date styles), there is very little build up or suggestion that she could have such violence within her. Despite having her perspective, there wasn't really enough interior life to her for me to fully empathize with her. Furthermore, while I think the exploration of mental health is important and vital in literature, I'm not sure this book does enough to explain what happens to her.

Edna did remind me a little of other characters, such as Edna, from The Awakening and also Beth, before she leaves her husband, in Small Changes, although they react to their existential despair in their own ways. (How does a desperate literary housewife escape her marriage?)

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is written as a kind of diary-series written by a forensic psychiatry hospital inmate who has killed her husband after a tedious marriage of twenty years. Her character is rather dull. Throughout their marriage, she is a housewife, childless, with a monomaniacal fixation on housecleaning. She constructs herself from magazine and book articles which advise her how to be "the perfect wife". In her psychopathological condition, she is obsessive-compulsive about everyday routines of dustless corners; mitered bedding, clean laundry, pressed shirts and the confinement and depersonalization that all of this lonesome routine has to offer her in her safe marriage. All appears to be well-- until she kills her husband.

[Diana · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story begins with a good premise and promises to reveal secrets and details of a woman in a mental institution and a crime she committed. However as the story progresses, the protagonist does not develop a complexity, in fact, her sister who is mentioned in one chapter seems to be a much more interesting woman. The idea is to understand why she murders her husband, but I think the journey from wife to murderer falls short. All the branches and complexities of that are not appreciated in this story. I feel like the story was a little too big for a character with no flavor.

[Jane Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This author has the gift of placing you right into the heart and mind of the protagonist; in this instance, a woman who has had a break with sanity and has killed her husband. Very interesting and not a little unnerving!

[Bruce Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a strange little book. Started slowly and went downhill from there.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This took me ages to finish because it was uncomfortable to read in the sense that you're inside this woman's head and she's obsessive about cleaning and basically living to be domestic with a massive lack of personality or interest in anything other than her husband, cleanliness of her home, perfection in cooking and everything else, and sometimes she'll secretly listen to records and dance and sing a long as though she's the star.

The confined life that Edna chooses to live makes me feel uneasy and kind of makes my skin crawl, but that said, Barfoot does an effective job in making it all sound kind of crazy-making over the years. It just made me wonder- what is happening in her head that whole time? Nothing? How is she not thinking about so much more?

Anyway, I didn't dislike it, but it wasn't an "uplifting" read in any sense.

[Sandra Hodgson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can never get enough Joan Barfoot

[Dystopian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay but dragged in spots.