Ghost Dance: A Play of Voices: A Novel

This haunting novel mixes past and present, reality and illusion, in a powerful, if fragmented narrative. The town of Chloride, N.M., is dying after years of drought and the exhaustion of its copper mines. A veritable Greek chorus of the town's leaders speculates on the area's colorful past and hopes that a festival featuring their own Roselle More, a movie star who dropped into obscurity after McCarthy-era blacklisting, will spark a renaissance. Roselle and her jaded entourage arrive; she disappears, and Joan Gallant, a troubled look-alike, is hired by Roselle's director to fool the townspeople. A stageful of sharply etched characters circles around Joan and her supporting cast, but no one is what he appears to be. Even a posthumous retrospective exhibit devoted to a critically acclaimed local artist seems to be fraudulent, except for one painting: The Ghost Dance , which portrays the tormented townspeople ``trying to dance flesh into spirit.'' Swan ( Carnival for the Gods ) has an acute eye and writes with strength. Although her ultimate message of rebirth and redemption is partly shrouded in hazy mysticism, she calls forth the Native American past and evokes the fantastic in the midst of the ordinary. (May)