One Last Dance: It's Never Too Late to Fall in Love - Hardcover

Williams, Mardo

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0964924145 ISBN 13: 9780964924147

Publisher: Calliope Press, 2005

Synopsis

A story about finding love at any age, One Last Dance is the delightful tale of Morgan, aged 89, and Dixie, 79, two ?mature? individuals on seemingly divergent paths. Despite their disastrous first meeting, complete with a ruined birthday cake, broken eyeglasses and insulting remarks, it was obvious to bystanders, even then, that the two were fated for each other. Dixie and Morgan begin to date and ultimately decide to move in together ? for economic reasons, they agree. But the business-only relationship changes and strengthens as the couple unite to combat illness, scandal, and a near-fatal accident. The story also reveals how past insecurities, humiliations, and fears can haunt a person throughout his days. Dixie fears intimacy. Morgan has concealed important details about his divorce, his estranged children, and his lost job. And all the while, a mysterious intruder lurks, bent on vengeance for past wrongs. He invades their lives, exposing their most intimate secrets and li

About this title

From the Publisher

When Mardo Williams approached us with the draft of One Last Dance, I was intrigued—I couldn’t think of another book of fiction that featured an 89-year-old man and a 79-year woman as leading characters and, beyond that, romantic leading characters. In America, the emphasis is on youth and we thought it was about time to let the more mature people strut their stuff.

Will Dixie and Morgan be daring enough—or lonely enough—to take a chance on life and love and possibly fail? Who better to write about their adventures than a man of 92, who late in his years found the courage himself to take several chances.

A third major character, Tony, mysterious, slightly sinister, surfaces in Chapter 2. And that also intrigued me when I read the manuscript. When he, Morgan and Dixie meet face-to-face, their lives are turned upside down. They embark on a journey none of them expected to make. Near the end of the book, Morgan thinks, bemused, Who’d ever believe the best things that happened to me happened at age 90?

The challenges of aging, the difficulties of finding satisfactory healthcare, the conflicts between generations, the importance of love and emotional support, all are issues explored in the novel through the eyes of Morgan, Dixie, and the "mysterious stranger"—making it not only a good read but a very discussible book. Reading Group Guide.

Eileen Wyman, Publisher, Calliope Press

From the Author

When our dad, Mardo Williams, was 92, he sat down at his computer and began his first novel. How hard could it be? He’d been a writer for over seventy years, first as a journalist, then as a teller of tales. He was writing One Last Dance, he said, to inspire old folks not to sit in a corner and wait for life to happen, but to go full speed at life, and yes, even have a love affair.

At the time he was a widower, living with a "significant other," a woman he’d become reacquainted with while touring with Maude (1883-1993): She Grew Up with the Country, his biography/memoir about his mother.

Dad wrote much of this novel between media engagements, book signings, and hospitalizations. He more than believed in the book. He was consumed by it. He had a great deal he wanted to say about the landscape of aging, and what it means to be in your nineties with the body failing and the mind and spirit still wanting it all. And he wanted to say it as humorously as possible. Blind from macular degeneration, he was forced to dictate the last chapters of the first draft.

He insisted we, his daughters (both writers), finish the book if he couldn’t. We promised. Dad died two weeks before we were to start revisions. He was 95.

The two main characters were 100% there. We fleshed out a few others. We completed the ending using his notes. If we reached an impasse, we reread his manuscript and found the clues we needed to continue. Dad's presence was palpable. He was our guide and our inspiration. This is his story, the way he wanted to tell it.

"There's no such thing as being too old," Dad once told an interviewer. "Life is for living, no matter what our age or condition. If we can sing, we should sing. If we can write, we should write. We should always be in search of a new experience, always be ready to commit ourselves to a new interest."

He lived this philosophy right up to the day of his death, February 3, 2001.

Edition details

• Publisher: Calliope Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0964924145
• ISBN 13: 9780964924147
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 422