Ten Cents a Dance, by Christine Fletcher
Fletcher, Christine (2008). Ten Cents a Dance. NY: Bloomsbury USA. 368 pages.
I read this one on the recommendation of my friend Beth and found it so intriguing that I finished it in nearly one (long) sitting. Set in Chicago in the early days of the Second World War, the novel follows Ruby, a fifteen-year-old meatpacker who has left school to support her ailing mother and younger sister. Discouraged by the tough job, low wages and her family’s perpetual debt, Ruby takes a job at a “dance academy” at the suggestion of Paulie, a good-looking local tough. Paid by lonely men ten cents for each dance she spends in their arms or at the academy’s soda fountain, Ruby finds herself exposed to a nighttime world of wild jazz, segregated nightclubs and hustling.
If anyone besides me is reminded of Tina Turner’s “Private Dancer” here, know that Ten Cents is much more up-tempo than Turner’s musical lamentation. Fletcher’s second novel (her first, Tallulah Falls [which I haven't read, by the way], was published in 2007) is comparable to Judy Blundell’s award-winning What I Saw and How I Lied. Both novels are set around WWII (Fletcher’s novel falls right before and then during the United States’ involvement; Blundell’s describes the postwar years) and both rely not on set pieces but on tone to convey the anxiety of the past. An uncommon World War II story, Fletcher’s novel makes what we would call today the “working poor” the center of her story and complicates our understanding of the time period by calling our attention to the racial prejudices and attitudes that colored interactions during the period, describing these in terms more nuanced than mere black and white. That said, Ten Cents is not a story about racial prejudice, nor is it a story about World War II. Instead, as in What I Saw, Fletcher demonstrates how a young person’s life and world view can be altered so dramatically by circumstance and individual agency, describes the “adult” work young people are capable of, and highlights the ironic demands adults make for these same young people to “return” to their young lives once their work (on behalf of the same adults) is done.