Dancers on a Dark Street: Stories

In this debut collection of short stories, Dancers on a Dark Street, Raoul Felder, best known as one of American's most powerful attorneys, proves himself a master storyteller. Drawing from a broad cast of characters, he creates vivid and unusual portraits of people struggling with loneliness and alienation, some striving to establish themselves in a new world, others working as hard as they can to deny their past. Some fall prey to hubris: assured of their infallibility, they venture into dangerous territory, only to discover the harrowing consequences of their actions. We meet newcomers to America filled with dreams of limitless possibilities who devolve into disillusioned transplants; Cold War survivors adjusting to a new world order; and lovers navigating the fragile framework of their relationships.

With great poignancy, Felder describes the lives of people in transition—few with money, some with disabilities—from post-WWII Europe to New York City's immigrant neighborhoods that are "much the same as the shtetls of Poland but without the hoofbeats of marauding Cossacks in the distance." Deftly, he traces the intergenerational connections that draw families together.

Using humor, pathos, and compassion, Felder reveals the triumphs and failings of his characters as they search for love, justice and a sense of place in an unforgiving world.