Dust dancing

<p>In Ian Gouge's eclectic new collection Dust dancing</em> many of the protagonists find themselves thwarted: by ambition by love by old age. Interlaced with occasional victories they experience both avoidable and unavoidable setbacks: the man tattooing his life history on his back; the woman fantasising about a Hollywood star; the man fired from his job; the actress believing she is destined to be 'a Bond Girl'; the policewoman making a gruesome discovery. We share the pleasure and pain associated with their various journeys the resonance of our own experience often adding a personal veneer to our reading.</p><p><br></p><p>Gouge's work has been compared to Henry James Sally Rooney Virginia Woolf and Ernest Hemingway. Dust dancing</em> is his fourth collection of short stories.</p>