Dancing in the Dark: Romance, Yearning, and the Search for the Sublime

By Barbara Lazear Ascher

"Romance is structured yearning. In the romantic moment, we gather and focus that yearning in order to connect with something outside ourselves, believing against all odds that such connection is possible, knowing paradoxically that romance is born in the space between our reach and our grasp."

So begins Barbara Lazear Ascher's Dancing in the Dark. Offering enchantment to a disenchanted age, this mesmerizing new book explores our instinctual, ageless romantic impulse and the essential role of romance in our lives, in nature, and in the arts.

Barbara Ascher's lyrical and provocative prose expands the idea of romance and reveals its powers to redeem passion in our everyday lives. Ascher seeks out the romantic and explores the connections among sex, religion, family, nature, travel, food, music, art, and architecture, offering unforgettable insights that engage the soul and mind.

In her quest for what is transcendent in life, she joins intrepid birders in Central Park, who brave winter cold for a glimpse of the long-eared owl--and for a connection between man and nature. She visits Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater house, and Le Cirque's kitchen to witness sensuous pastrymaking. She travels to great museums to view extraordinary paintings and to discuss romance with Sydney Pollack. She attends a Barbara Cook master class and buys a manual typewriter on which to write. Every page of this book draws us into our deepest humanity.

Dancing in the Dark elevates this vital sentiment to a passion-suffused life force, available to all, composed of hope, reverence for the unattainable, and the desire for more. Friendly, humorous, informative, Dancing in the Dark connects life to art, fact to fiction, and present to past.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060174420
• ISBN13: 9780060174422
• Release Date: April 1999
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 1.11 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

This book is inspiring! Recapture the romance of living!

Dancing in the Dark shows us how to live the inspired life, to embrace life and breathe every moment into and out of it. Whether it is something as simple as a walk in the park or as special as a visit to the Prado Museum, Barbara Lazear Ascher puts a spring back in our step and gives us that little push we so often need to get back on track and be thankful we're alive! Here's to life and to Barbara!

A must read!

This is one of those books where the blurb on the back is absolutely right. Pat Conroy said of this book, ..."You read it and wonder aloud why you have not asked more for yourself. You want to tear yourself away from your own sleepwalking life and shout, 'Now!' What a wonderful book!" Indeed.