Dance Prone

Praise for David Coventry's previous book, The Invisible Mile. 'Bruising, beautiful and ultimately transcendent, there's a perfect thought on sport, humanity or endurance on just about every page' Markus Zusak, author of The Book Thief. '. absorbing, and on many levels. It's a book about violence, youth, mythology, history, guilt and love - all set to the agonising rhythm of an inhuman bike race. Some achievement. Fictionalised accounts of sporting events don't always work, but this has the same feeling of total immersion as I remember feeling when I read David Peace's The Damned Utd. ' Ned Boulting, cycling broadcaster and author'Pick of the Week. David Coventry's poetic odyssey in the Tour de France. Relates. with symbolic force and poetic finesse. ' Sydney Morning Herald. 'Gorgeous. Coventry's brooding narrative, in varying parts philosophical action adventure, travelogue, family drama, war chronicle and psychological puzzler, is suffused with the ever-querying perspective of its haunted central character. ' New York Times. 'A wonderfully colourful and attentive novel that subtly combines the tangible pains of the race with the echoes of war. It isn't myth-making or playing true events like puppets. Coventry commendably creates his own legend and pays homage to our ancestral competitors in doing so. Bursts of brilliance. ' Sunday Express. '. it's such an accomplished and beautifully refined novel. It almost makes other writers look like they're just mucking around. ' Kiran Dass, New Zealand Herald. 'The Invisible Mile. is a dream to read, in all senses of the word. It's a trance-like account of the 1928 Tour de France. The writing is fierce, a bravura mix of narcissism, masochism and lyricism grounded in the honesty of the unnamed rider's journey into his self and the dawning realisation that the race has become a grand metaphor for the trauma of World War I. ' John Sinclair, Metro.