Dancing Backward in Paradise by Vera Jane Cook Search Amazon for other books by or about Vera Jane Cook. Rating: Reviewed by: Maurice Williams

Dancing Backward in Paradise begins in 1966 when the 19 year-old heroine, Grace Place is living in Paradise Trailer Park in Hixson, TN. Grace has just accepted a job at a nearby motel restaurant. On her way to work for the first night, her car breaks down and three local men she knows offer to help and then try to rape her. Grace recalls that her paternal grandfather, Granddaddy Ellsworth, who is referred to as a preacher because he frequently preaches to others, is not only fanatical but is also oversexed. He earlier molested Grace and her younger brother, Tommy. "I lost my cherry long before when Granddaddy Ellsworth stuck his finger up there and popped it."

Grace's mother suggests a second job as housekeeper for Betty Ann Houseman. Betty Ann is twenty-five. She hires Grace on the spot. Betty's husband, Kevin Kane Housemen, is dying from cancer and has an "Itsy, bitsy pin dick." Two weeks later Grace meets Lenny Dean and falls in love with him. Shortly afterward, Grace finds Betty Ann in bed with one of the three men who tried to rape Grace. Grace's brother, Tommy, soon has sex with Betty Ann. Grace later discovers that her boyfriend, Lenny Bean, is also having sex with Betty Ann. Granddaddy Ellsworth finds out and has a fanatical harangue about sin and evil.

Grace and her friend Ginny Jo decide to go to New York City. In New York, Grace gets a job at Bernie's Burgers and then meets Brandon Carr. Brandon offers Grace to rent an apartment that he and his wife Tia own. Brandon arranges a job through an influential friend for Grace to work as a model for TV commercials. Grace gradually falls in love with Brandon and eventually wants to marry him. Meanwhile, in Hixson, Tommy has sex with another girl, Scarlet, and gets her pregnant. She has an abortion. Grace tells her father that Tommy had been fooling with both Ginny Jo and with Scarlet, and the two girls had been fooling with each other. Granddaddy Ellsworth overhears and bellows "God punishes the unholy and dims the light of righteousness before thee! Call the Lord, sinners. Let the Lord be on the receiving end of your phone calls!" He was on his knees praying.

Betty Ann eventually marries Lenny Bean, Grace's ex-boyfriend. Betty Ann afterwards explains to Grace why she married Lenny. It's not a happy marriage, and Betty Ann asks Grace, if anything happens to Betty Ann, to take care of her child "Tabby" that she and her late husband Kevin Kane had. Later, Granddaddy Ellsworth preaches to Grace, calling her a "New York hussy" and stating that "entertainers go to hell." Scarlet, who had earlier moved in with the Places and had befriended Granddaddy, screams "Save me Jesus! Take this evil from my groin!" Granddaddy hugs her "with one hand on his private part and the other clutching his bible to his heart." This repeated vilification of a fictional character sort of sets the tone for this award-winning novel.

The author then weaves these various threads into a plot where Betty Ann's daughter Tabby really becomes in peril. Grace, at the risk of her own happiness, decides a course of action that can rescue Tabby. If you like racy novels, you might have an appetite for this one. If you think a fictional character, obviously mentally ill, can diminish your own sense of right and wrong, you might find this novel hard to digest.