Dance a Little Longer

Lucinda Richards Trilogy #3

by Jane Roberts Wood

The Lucinda “Lucy” Richards trilogy, spanning the years from 1911 to the 1930s, has everything good books should a variety of landscapes, characters of all ages and social classes, an overall tenderness that never lapses into sentimentality, and a sense of the comic amidst the tragic. Lucy is feisty, funny, and completely open-armed about life. Josh passionately confronts danger and greed and prejudice with courage and humor and, sometimes, with bare fists. Even the minor characters are so rife with color that you first turn the pages quickly to see what they will do next and, then, you turn them slowly so as to savor each page of this remarkable trilogy.

The year is 1931 and Lucy Richards Arnold—now a mother of a precocious four-year-old son—is in rural West Texas, teaching in the school where her husband, Josh, is principal and struggling to make a success of their farm during the bleak, hard times of the Great Depression. Out of this barren landscape, rich and colorful characters emerge as if from a fertile land. Before the year’s end, Lucy is faced with a loss of such magnitude that she must struggle to find a way to recapture the joy in her very existence.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Novels

216 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The third in the Train to Estelline trilogy, "Dance" is another of Woods' beautifully, simply written books about life, just life and its joys and rigorous struggles in Depression-era West Texas. While you would think the eternal dust and deprivation would bring the reader low, the small moments bring brightness to the story.

Lucy and Josh Arnold have answered an ad for a school principal and "a position for his wife" and moved to the panhandle of West Texas, near Canadian, in 1931. They moved with their little boy John Patrick from Arkansas to begin anew. Times are hard there; a severe drought has brought the area to its knees.

Lucy adapts to people showing up at her back door looking for food, but she never gets comfortable with strangers. She makes friends with the community as does Josh. She loves her first graders dearly and feels confident with the young girl who comes to the house to take care of John Patrick. Likewise, Meg comes to adore the Arnold's.

Life takes a downturn that the Arnold's must face with all the strength they can muster, but in the West Texas spirit and with the belief the bad times must end, the rains do come and life moves on. I was left wanting more. Much more.

[The_Old_Brick · Rating 2 out of 5]

POSITIVE
1. Dance a Little Longer contains the same ambience as the first two books in the Lucinda Richards Trilogy.

NEGATIVE
Compared to the first two books, Dance a Little Longer is poorly written.

1. A lack of sense throughout. Example: "He leaves the car, drives through and closes the gate, returns to the car."

2. Strange morality. In A Place Called Sweet Shrub (Book #2 of the trilogy), Jeremiah suffers horrible racial injustice, evoking the heartfelt sympathy of readers. In Dance a Little Longer, though unspoken, Lucy unfairly blames Jeremiah for the book's tragedy.

More strange morality. If a mother spanks her child, Lucy threatens to contact the police. However, as school principal, Josh dishes out corporal punishment even a year after the infraction. Josh punches out a person without repercussions simply for making a low-ball offer.

3. Two instances of gratuitous sex, the first only 16 pages into the book. A cheap hook for readers' attention.

4. Characters seem flat. Situations seem flat. The author treats each topic superficially.

OVERALL
Jane Roberts Wood, the author, rested on her laurels. Clearly, she put less work into Dance a Little Longer than the first two books.

Here's a possible reason. In the opening of Dance a Little Longer, she thanks the National Endowment of the Arts "for its support during the writing of this book". Presumably financial support. There's less incentive to produce good writing when payment has already been received.

[Treasure Island Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

Third book in a trilogy about Lucy Richards Arnold. This one was written in third person. It did not have the immediacy or charm of the other two in the series. A bit depressing but realistic for the time and place.

[Ingrid K · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the third book in the trilogy and they are all wonderful! Love the characters, sense of place, details that make the time period feel authentic, and the plotting. She is such a talented writer.

[Sandy Neal · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lovely story about the hardships of living in the Texas panhandle.

[David Sidwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, sad, and deeply compassionate. On the surface it’s a simple story of a young couple making their way in life working hard trying to do the right things along the way. The writing is sublime: direct, articulate, showing how real people communicate their quiet, deepest pain through the most simple sentences. Page 172: ‘Josh knew that the lamps lit throughout the house at night, the books lying carelessly about, were deceptive. The truth of their lives was buried just below the surface.’

[Esther · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the issues handled in the first two books are weighty enough, this one is more personal. It's difficult in any of them to feel any of the despair or frustration that some of the characters must be feeling; certainly people who actually lived through these events did. I'm not sure why, since the author doesn't stray from discussing the topics, but all three books come across as light and happy-ending. This book experiments with different narrative styles, switching POV and tense often. It works better in this one than in the first, but. These are nice stories, and the world of the story is faithfully and authentically created, but there's little in any of them to sway your heart.

[Elaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish I wouldn't have read these three books in a row because I was a little tired of the series by the time I started this one. There's a gap of about 7 years between this book and the second, so reading at least one other book in between would make sense. That said, I ended up enjoying this book more than the others. There's tragedy in this book, but I liked the way it was handled. There was more character development in this one. Overall, a good series about east and west Texas.

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the third book in the Lucy series and I wouldn't recommend reading this one alone nor out of order. You would miss so much of the history of the characters. This one broke my heart and if you don't like a book with sadness, you may want to pass on it. I thoroughly enjoyed this trilogy and am sad not to be able to continue the story of Lucy's life.

[Lyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

The schol marm story continues from the trilogy.

[June · Rating 3 out of 5]

Last book in the trilogy.