Slow Dance on the Fault Line

by Donald Rawley

From the seedy sun-drenched bungalows to Polo Lounge booths to opulent mansions along winding canyon drives, Donald Rawley shines a merciless light on a city perched precariously on the rim of the desert and edge of reality. In these fourteen finely crafted gems of impassioned lyricism, the author rakes his pen across the glistening veneer of Los Angeles' elusive fantasy and hard-boiled glamour to expose the unvarnished, unsavory truth underneath. Whether focusing on a comedian's homicidal greed, a second-rate screenwriter pondering his lot sitting naked in a Bentley, or a valium-addicted beauty seeking gratification amid a tawdry carnival sideshow, Donald Rawley relentlessly excavates LA's sun-bleached graveyard of broken hopes, shattered dreams and sordid memories.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Donald Rawley was an exceptional LA writer who died tragically at 40 of AIDS in 1998, a mentor who was a penetrating influence and inspiration in my own writing. This collection of California stories contain much of his best work, exhibiting every beautiful thing about his sensibility and prose. There's a lush, lyrical sound to Rawley's work, as well as a romantic, Neo-Noirish point of view.

Here's the opening to the story "DeMarco's Jazz":

"It was as though the trees around the house had been planted by fire. their branches were twisted with crippled black arms and tropical berries that looked poisonous under waxed flowers. Italian cypress, so easy to grow in Los Angeles--stuck out in neat rows, wind bend at vulgar angles and hiding things that flew. Its hedges were voluptuous as an old French bed, pulsing with fat roses that spilled over a short front lawn of pink and white gravel."

Here's a bit of "Rattlesnake Season":

"In Boston he had loved his wife. And still did. She was oxygen and musk, calculating and frail. She had natural auburn hair that seemed to mirror each season they sped through. Her white skin could powder him with heat and pornographic oaths that he never thought he knew; her arms were the only safe place left. Here in Los Angeles, in their house of riptide balconies and spiraling air, she was trapped by a sun that would burn her Irish skin, by a poverty they had tried to escape..."

I didn't realize I hadn't reviewed his work before--two collections of short stories, a novel and five poetry collections.

[Scott Bentley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favourite book of all time. Donald Rawley captures Los Angeles, the people that live there, the ghosts that haunt there and the air that pollutes in a way that evokes every single emotion that you have ever felt if you have ever lived in the city. Whenever I feel homesick for L.A., this is the book I read. The only flaw is that I read the book after the authors passing, I wish I had read it whilst he was living so I could write him and tell him how wonderful the book is.

[Gabriel Valjan · Rating 4 out of 5]

“It begins with heavy dust drops of rain and the sound of the elements colliding, rumbling, like an elevator dropping. Then white light in veins, like the veins of a man’s arms running down the wrist to the shoulder, then nothing. If God is a man, then these are his arms; if God is a woman, then these are her lover’s.”

Donald Rawley‘s Slow Dance On The Fault Line, p.127. (1997).

This excerpt from Rawley’s short story collection captures the sudden onset violence of a thunderstorm in southern California. All of his stories employ graphic, poetic imagery that reminds me of Kate Braverman in poetry, and Chandler and Isherwood in prose. Rawley is the author of numerous short stories, some novels. His novel The Night Bird Cantata earned him critical acclaim first in England and later in the United States. Mr. Rawley left us in 1998.

[Francisco Manuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slow Dance on the Fault Line is a collection of stories about people living in the shadow of glamour. They are close enough to see it, but never close enough to belong to it. Donald Rawley’s Los Angeles is populated by aspiring actors, lonely wives, immigrants, children, and dreamers. They move around a world of wealth, beauty, and power, yet remain powerless themselves. What makes these stories so compelling is Rawley’s ability to reveal that the glamorous world his characters long for is often more dangerous, more corrupt, and emotionally emptier than the lives they are trying to escape.

Throughout the collection, characters find themselves trapped in unequal relationships and shifting power dynamics. Some are openly exploited, while others barely recognize how they are being manipulated by desire, status, religion, family, or fantasy. Whether following a grieving Hollywood wife drawn to a carnival drifter, or a deeply religious mother confronting her own repression, or a young girl’s painful awakening to the realities of adulthood, Rawley consistently explores the gap between appearance and reality.

The prose is the book’s greatest strength. Rawley writes with a poet’s precision and a razor’s sharpness, cutting through illusions to expose loneliness, longing, and self-deception. His stories are often sad, but not because his characters endure extraordinary hardships. Instead, they resonate with the quiet ache of wanting lives that remain forever out of reach.

Elegant, unsettling, and deeply human, Slow Dance on the Fault Line is a memorable portrait of Los Angeles and the people stranded at the edges of its dreams.

[Carly · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 I really like Rawley’s writing. I like his stories individually. In a volume they eventually they start to feel a bit repetitive. Same type of women over and over.