Transient dancing

Two men meet on a Greek Island in 1995. Johnny Reed is a gifted actor who made an auspicious Broadway debut, heralded as “the next Sidney Poitier.” When the play is sold to Hollywood and his drama-school best friend, Dorrie, becomes the girlfriend of a powerful, vindictive film agent, Johnny and Dorrie’s surreptitious sexual friendship brings professional retribution. This, and the violent death of his musician uncle, causes Johnny to re-evaluate his life in white America. When a touring musical about New York’s legendary Stonewall riots takes him to Athens, he falls in love with Soula, a Greek tour guide. They marry, and move to Hydra, where their daughter, Marilena, is born.Theddo Daniels, 62, is an African-American leader, and a closeted homosexual in the early stages of AIDS. He has just chaired a Diaspora Conference in Greece, “the cradle of the Whitefolks’ whole thing.” Future uncertain, he decides to stay awhile on the island, to write a memoir around his relationship with a young Swedish dance, Bjorn Nilsson, who tells him “You belong to two groups, but only fight for one.” Set in Greece, Sweden, New York, LA and London, TRANSIENT DANCING is a character rich, frequently funny, wonderful novel. Ultimately, it is about how we wander and where we land.