The dance tree A novel

In 1518, Strasbourg seems punished by God as it is plagued by famine, drought, and suffocating heat. Then, a mania: in the town square, women begin to dance until they collapse, their numbers soon swelling. Heavily pregnant Lisbet has her own troubles. A dozen miscarriages robbed her of hope, and her husband's distance increases with her desperation. Her sister-in-law, Agnethe, returns after years of penance for a mysterious transgression. Lisbet's friend Ida knows Agnethe's "secret," and Ida's husband, a vicious representative of the local council, threatens all. Through visceral but expressive prose, Hargrave (The Mercies, 2020) intersperses Lisbet, Ida, and Agnethe's story with brief backstories for the dancing women. Though the historic dancing plague involved both sexes, Hargrave creates a female-only phenomenon. She explores themes of female subjugation--"where every priest preaches their damnation, where their husbands drag them by the hair and they must drown their children"--along with a secondary focus on sexual and racial persecution. This feminist tale features strong female characterization against the interesting backdrop of a mania the cause of which is still debated 500 years later.

Hargrave's overwrought latest (after The Mercies) takes place in the sweltering European summer of 1518, when a slew of women danced in the central square of Strasbourg for months. The craze begins with Lisbet, a beekeeper who is determined to see her latest pregnancy through after a series of miscarriages. Her husband, Henne, leaves home for Heidelberg to keep their bees from being confiscated by the local monastery, just as Lisbet's sister-in-law, Nethe, returns after seven years at a secluded abbey in the mountains, penance for an unnamed sin. Only Lisbet's friend Ida, married to a cruel and vengeful man, and Nethe know about Lisbet's dance tree, deep in the forest, where ribbons flutter for each of the children she has lost. Secrets are revealed, and things spiral dangerously out of control for Lisbet after an increasing number of women take to dancing themselves into oblivion in the city, prompting two musicians to attempt to cast the devil out of them with their music. Sometimes Hargrave's prose soars, but more often its excessive floridity undercuts the story's drama. Readers will have a hard time finding their way into this one. Agent: Kirby Kim, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (Mar.)