Diane McKinney-Whetstone
Blues Dancing
Verdi and Rowe have been living a comfortable existence for the past twenty years. She was the pampered daughter of a prosperous rural preacher when she came to Philadelphia in the seventies -- and he was a conservative professor at the university she was attending, the man who rescued Verdi from an ugly addiction, and left his sophisticated wife for her when he fell in love with the confused young southern girl.
It was another student, a poor and militant city boy named Johnson, who awakened Verdi's passionate heart and taught her to love heroin. But Johnson was an obsession Verdi closed her eyes to but never got over, and now he has come back into her life -- rekindling with one look the fire that still smolders in the ashes of the past, sending them both skidding dangerously and uncontrollably toward the mad desires of their youth.
Questions for Discussion
Harper Collins Publishers have prepared a Reading Group Guide with questions for your Reading Group for Blues Dancing .
Food Rec
Food and sharing meals play a major role in McKinney-Whetstone’s novel. One of the first meals that Johnson and Verdi shared was the leftover meatloaf and green beans that Johnson's mother had made for her son to take back to his dorm one Friday evening. This green bean salad is reflective of their first moments of falling in love during their college days.