As an admirer of Marge Piercy’s volume of work, from novels to memoirs, I was eager to read this earliest novel, Dance the Eagle to Sleep: A Novel.
In her iconic style, she zeroes in on the young during an exploratory time in their lives, as they seek to free themselves from the strictures of ordinary society, to escape from the “boxes” in which they reside and the stilted mantra their parents perpetuate.
Our MCs are four teens caught up in a revolutionary fervor, and the story spotlights them one by one, in alternating perspectives, from Shawn (previously Sean) the rocker to the Native American Corey. Runaways are drawn to this fledgling group that expands as the zeal increases. Like Jill (Joanna) or Billy. As we examine their inner thoughts and feelings, through these individuals we come to understand their stories and their causes.
Through music, through dance, and ultimately through experimenting with their own structures, including a farm commune, they become their own persons.
Piercy is great at showing us what the “revolutionary world” of the sixties and seventies was all about. I enjoyed some of her later works a lot more, like Small Changes. But I also liked this glimpse of her beginnings. 3.5 stars.
POTPOURRI 